■>4 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

FREDERIC  THOMAS  BLANCHARD 

FOR  THE 

ENGLISH  READING  ROOM 


y 


SK 


RECOLLECTIONS 


OF 


EMINENT     MEN 


AMERICAN     LITERATURE. 

anU  €t\]cx  papers. 

By   Edwin    Percy  Whipple. 

With  Introduction  by  John  Greenleaf  Whittier, 
to  whom  the  volume  is  ded.cated. 

i2mo.     Gilt  top.     $1.50. 


This  new  volume  of  the  great  essayist's  works  contains 
his  famous  Centennial  articles  on  American  Literature; 
two  articles  on  Emerson ;  a  brilliant  monograph  on 
Starr  King  ;  and  the  now  classic  review  of  Daniel 
Webster's  oratory,  —  all  written  with  that  finished  el- 
egance of  style  and  affluence  of  incident  and  anecdote 
for  which  Whipple  was  famed. 


/^or  sale  by  all  booksellers-     Senl,  post-paid,  on  re- 
ceipt 0/  the  price,  by  tlte  publishers, 

TICKNOR   AND  COMPANY,  Boston. 


RECOLLECTIONS 


OF 


EMINENT      MEN 


litj)  ©tijer  ^aptts 


BY 


EDWIN    PERCY    WHIPPLE 


b 


WITH  INTRODUCTION   BY    REV.   C.  A.  BARTOL,  D.D. 


BOSTON 
TICKNOR    AND    COMPANY 

211  STremont  Street 


Copyright,  1886, 
By    TlCKNOR   AND   Co. 


AU  rights  reserved. 


FIFTH    EDITION. 


©nifaereitg  ^Jrcss: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


CONTENTS. 


Paqi 
INTRODUCTION vii 


Some  Recollections  op  Rufus  Choate 1 

Recollections  op  Agassiz 77 

Some  Recollections  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson      .     .  119 

Motley,  the  Historian 155 

Recollections  of  Charles  Sumner 204 

George  Ticknor 244 

Matthew  Arnold 280 

Barry  Cornwall  and  some  of  his  Contemporaries    .  305 

Daniel  Deronda 344 

George  Eliot's  Private  Life 380 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  writer  of  these  now  collected  celebrations  of 
literary,  political,  scientific,  and  philanthrophic  genius 
has  added  his  own  name  to  the  number  of  the  dead, 
and  his  own  writings  thereby  become  posthumous. 
As  the  peer  of  the  subjects  of  his  pen,  he  would  de- 
serve a  portrait  from  the  hand  of  an  artist  equal  to 
himself  in  depicting  character,  could  such  an  one  be 
found.  Had  he,  like  Rubens  and  Hunt  and  other 
painters,  sat  to  himself,  what  a  likeness,  in  manu- 
script, from  his  self-knowledge  and  curious  skill  we 
might  have  had,  but  that  his  singular  lowliness  would 
hide  the  equally  rare  splendor  of  his  gifts  !  A  re- 
markable unconsciousness  of  his  own  superiority 
always  made  others'  estimate  of  him  a  sort  of  shame 
and  surprise  to  his  own  mind ;  and  so,  in  apprais- 
ing his  peculiar  faculties,  he  would  for  once  have 
fallen  below  the  mark.  To  use  Jeremy  Taylor's 
figure,  he  was  like  the  candle  casting  about  it  a 
shadow  and  a  cloud,  and  shining  to  all  but  himself. 


X  INTRODUCTION. 

beauty,  piously  wiped  away  the  dust  of  oblivion, — 
like  Walter  Scott's  reverent  covenanter  among  the 
tombs,  rechiselled  the  mossy,  worn,  dim  inscriptions, 
and  deepened  the  images  time  could  not  efface ! 

Mr.  Whipple  was  an  intellectual  sympathy  incarnate. 
He  lived  to  do  honor  to  others,  and  to  forget  himself  in 
awarding  to  everybody  else  the  meed  of  desert.  No 
dramatic  poet,  novelist,  painter  of  likenesses  on  the 
canvas  could  be  in  his  subjects  and  sitters  more  ab- 
sorbed, himself  unconscious  of  having  any  claim  or 
winning  a  morsel  of  regard.  Death  itself,  in  its  ap- 
proaches to  him,  seems  to  have  respected  this  blessed 
devotion,  this  privacy  so  intense,  this  humility  —  as 
Monckton  Milnes  wrote  —  so  joyful  and  dear. 

For  some  years  his  health  had  been  failing  and 
infirmity  on  the  increase.  But  he  was  not  a  man 
to  tell,  or  let  us  suspect,  his  troubles.  He  would 
communicate  only  gladness  and  good  cheer;  he 
kept  his  pain  or  sorrow  to  himself.  At  the  de- 
cease of  a  beloved  daughter,  he  simply  said  to  me, 
"  It  is  untalkable."  He  was  meek  and  lowly  like 
his  Master,  and  the  almost  more  than  a  woman's 
delicacy  in  his  robust  and  manly  mind  was  a  sort 
of  continual  hint  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  A  strong 
thinker  in  a  slender  frame,  he  had  also  the  sensi- 
bility which  is  not  unveiled,  and  the  sentiment  which 
cannot  be  sentimental  or  weak.  Nobody  would  enter 
a  more  displeased  protest  against  whoever  would  set 


INTRODUCTION.  XI 

him  forth  as  a  model  of  perfection,  in  any  way. 
He  would  not  say,  with  Oliver  Cromwell,  "  Paint 
me  as  I  am."  He  would  rather,  in  the  spirit  of 
Shakspcare's  beautiful  sonnet,  deprecate  any  exhibi- 
tion of  mourning  remembrance  after  the  tolling  of 
the  sullen  bell,  and  beg  not  to  be  painted  at  all. 

This  rarely  modest  disposition  was  well  suited 
in  the  custom  of  his  plain  and  quiet  demeanor,  in 
his  withdrawal  from  appearing  abroad  as  his  bodily 
strength  abated,  and  in  the  peculiarly  placid  cir- 
cumstances of  his  lamented  yet  cheerful  demise. 
But  diminution  of  his  never  gigantic  frame  of  flesh 
was  attended  with  no  loss  of  interior  faculty.  His 
analytic  power  was  as  searching,  his  observation  as 
keen,  his  memory  had  the  same  amplitude  and  grip 
at  the  last  as  at  the  first.  In  many  recent  conver- 
sations with  him  under  the  roof  or  by  the  way,  I 
was  unable  to  perceive  in  him  any  intellectual  loss. 
But  the  ties  were  unambiguously  loosening  that 
bound  him  to  this  life.  Like  the  aeronaut,  he  was 
very  evidently  getting  ready  to  go  up.  Cord  after 
cord  is  cut ;  the  silken  vessel  swells  with  the  buoy- 
ant element  penned  in ;  it  sways  and  flutters  to 
and  fro  with  the  passing  breeze.  At  length  the 
only  remaining  thread  is  severed  that  detains  it 
from  the  sky,-  and  it  soars  out  of  view,  and  we 
linger  at  the  rising  like  those  men  of  Galilee  gazing 
up  after  that  other  ascension  into  heaven. 


xii  INTRODUCTION. 

I  do  not  desire  to  expose  myself  to  my  lifelong 
friend's  rebuke,  reaching  me  though  he  be  dead,  by 
describing  him  as  devoid  of  any  human  limitation 
or  fault.  But  I  cannot,  through  my  tears,  in  my  be- 
loved see  errors  when  their  virtues  stand  in  the  way ; 
and  his  virtues  were  so  great,  that  all  else  was  but  as 
the  chalf  the  wind  blows  away  as  the  flail  threshes  it 
from  the  wheat  in  the  autumn  field  or  on  the  granary 
floor ;  or  like  an  eclipse  of  the  moon,  which  the  sun 
makes  by  casting  the  earth's  shadow  from  his  own 
wondrous  blaze. 

He  had  an  eminent  magnanimity.  Did  others 
crowd  and  push  in  the  grasp  for  riches  or  race  for 
fame?  —  he  stood  aside,  he  fell  back,  he  relinquished 
to  those  who  craved  it  the  prize.  I  never  heard  a 
word  of  envy  from  his  lips ;  I  never  saw  a  spark 
of  malice  in  his  eye.  He  rejoiced  in  his  comrade's 
superiority  and  success.  He  was  just  to  those  who 
were  unjust  to  him.  He  was,  in  the  language  of 
the  hymn, — 

"Content  and  pleased  to  live  unknown." 

Yet  as  Othello  said,  "  I  must  be  found,"  and  as  the 
great  Cajsar,  despite  hesitation  and  warning  on  "  the 
Ides  of  March,"  had  to  go  forth  and  be  seen,  so  all 
men  according  to  their  ability  must  work  with  their 
fellows,  to  be  measured  and  weighed.  "While,  like 
foresters  with   their  tape-lines   at  the   mighty  oaks 


INTRODUCTION.  xiii 

and  elms  and  pines,  many  of  Mr.  Whipple's  asso- 
ciates in  the  Guild  of  Letters  are  putting  their  esti- 
mates of  him  in  print,  my  reckoning  will  be  super- 
fluous but  for  my  own  need  from  an  intimate  ac- 
quaintance and  as  a  duty  of  office  over  his  coffin 
to  set  my  witness  down.  Let  me,  then,  in  addition 
to  the  mention  of  his  freedom  from  all  that  is  mean 
or  false,  note  his  function  as  a  scholar  in  the  realm 
of  knowledge,  and  how  he  fared  in  that  true  pros- 
perity whose  conditions  he  expounded  to  stimulate 
so  many  a  younger  student's  ambition  and  ennoble 
his  aims. 

Mr.  Whipple  will  be  remembered  mainly  in  his 
function  as  a  critic  in  the  commentary  of  the  coming 
age.  How  well  he  personally  illustrated  and  valued 
the  criticism  whose  uses  he  so  highly  esteemed,  and 
whose  business  he  was  one  of  the  first  fairly  to  insti- 
tute in  the  land !  In  art,  of  the  literary  or  any  other 
kind,  a  standard  of  criticism  scarce  existed  in  this 
country  fifty  years  ago.  Even  now,  in  every  depart- 
ment of  intelligence,  how  crude  we  are  in  our  opin- 
ions and  biassed  in  our  decisions  !  How  kissing  goes 
by  favor  in  many  of  the  articles  admitted  for  publi- 
cation in  newspapers  and  magazines  ;  and  how  Barab- 
bas  is  preferred  to  Jesus  every  day ! 

Said  James  T.  Fields  to  me :  "1  could  double 
the  merit  of  the  articles  in  the  '  Atlantic  Monthly ' 
and  halve  my  subscription  list  at  the  same  time." 


xiv  INTRODUCTION. 

In  a  similar  vein  of  ridicule  of  the  prostitution  of 
journalism  to  popularity,  he  wittily  laid  it  down  as 
an  obligation  in  his  craft  to  "  pander  to  the  good 
taste  of  the  public,"  as  Mr.  Whipple  laughed  at  what 
was  sour  and  presuming  in  authorship,  when  he 
talked  of  "  men  of  wit  and  displeasure  about  town." 
I  do  not  overlook  such  writers  as  George  Ripley  in 
the  "New  York  Tribune"  and  many  a  name  of  fine 
repute  among  the  living  or  the  dead.  I  am  not 
unmindful  of  them  when,  not  quarrelling  with  the 
diverse  sincere  conclusions  in  which  these  guagers 
of  books  are  variously  guaged,  I  pronounce  Edwin 
P.  Whipple  the  best  critic  and  creator  of  criticism 
America  has  produced.  Let  me  enumerate,  briefly 
in  order,  some  of  the  marks  of  excellence  on  this 
sort  of  judicial  bench. 

1.  The  critic's  first  qualification  for  his  part  is 
what  Paul  calls  "  the  discerning  of  spirits "  among 
the  gifts  in  the  early  Church.  Mr.  Whipple  found  the 
honey  in  the  carcass ;  he  sucked  the  marrow  from 
the  bones.  He  had  a  profound,  mierring  penetra- 
tion of  an  author's  meaning,  and  survey  of  his  scope. 
Nothing  in  the  contents  of  a  volume  could  escape 
that  eye  so  quick  and  large,  so  sharp  and  tender,  so 
clear,  yet  not  dry  or  malign.  He  understood  every 
purpose,  saw  the  precise  direction,  and  tasted  in  the 
disquisition  or  poem  each  particular  word.  He  car- 
ried his  infallible  divination  of  character,  in  its  forms 


INTRODUCTION.  xv 

in  the  living  book  of  society,  into  his  inspection  and 
reading  of  the  transcript  made  by  the  pen.  Sel- 
dom, if  ever,  did  he  understate  or  overdraw. 

2.  He  was  so  apt  at  distinctions  that  he  could  draw 
the  line  between  his  own  body  and  soul.  His  weapon 
was  too  much  for  its  scabbard  ;  he  was  all  sword  and 
no  sheath.  He  was  able  to  reconstruct  a  literary  com- 
poser from  a  sentence,  as  Agassiz  —  his  appreciative 
friend,  near  whose  ashes  his  will  lie  —  would  refashion 
a  fish  from  a  scale. 

3.  He  was  disinterested,  too.  He  did  not,  like 
some  preachers  and  reviewers,  make  his  theme  a 
mere  text  of  his  own  essay  or  discourse,  —  a  me- 
dium, proxy,  or  pretence.  He  treated  of  his  subject, 
putting  himself  behind  that.  He  was  the  crystalline 
medium,  and  like  a  sea  of  glass,  —  never  a  mote  in 
his  own  by  turns  microscopic  and  telescopic  lens. 
How  minute  his  examination  and  extensive  his 
range ! 

4.  He  was  broadly  impartial.  Some,  perhaps  as 
able  critics  as  he,  were  not  so  just.  He  wins  the 
commendation,  rarely  deserved,  that  his  equity  could 
without  the  least  unfairness  take  in  such  persons 
as  Mann  and  Phillips,  Sumner  and  Palfrey,  Haw- 
thorne, Arnold  and  Emerson,  Lincoln  and  Choate, 
Dewey  and  King,  Garrison  and  Webster,  at  once. 
He  knew  and  could  explain  Dickens  and  Thackeray 
and  George  Eliot  better  than  they  could  comprehend 


xvi  INTRODUCTION. 

and  account  for  themselves.  He  was  in  his  youth 
one  of  the  earliest  and  warmest  opponents  of  slavery, 
however  it  may  have  happened  to  him,  as  to  some 
others,  to  be  defamed  by  some  zealot  for.  not  swearing 
by  abolition  shibboleths  in  every  method  or  phrase. 
When  stung  by  the  great  Massachusetts  senator's  rid- 
icule of  the  higher  law  and  his  7th  of  March  speech, 
Emerson  denounced  him  as  "  a  man  without  char- 
acter, every  drop  of  blood  in  him  looking  down," 
Whipple  could  see  that  Webster  had  a  real  conception 
of  America,  and,  with  all  his  lack  of  faith  and  philan- 
thropy, was  loyal  to  his  idea ;  had  laid  or  re-laid  in  his 
answers  to  Hayne  and  Calhoun  the  foundations  of 
constitutional  freedom  for  the  United  States,  and  by 
his  stanch  position  within  the  legal  lines  of  his  place 
foiled  fresh  plots  of  secession ;  pushing  with  his  giant 
shoulders  to  postpone  the  Civil  War  for  ten  years, 
—  from  the  time  when  we  should  have  been  beaten, 
until  we  might  husband  our  resources  and  gather 
strength  to  prevail,  —  while  he  foresaw  and  shud- 
dered at  the  Red  Sea.  Whipple's  judgment  of 
Webster  was  generous ;  Emerson's  ideal,  natural,  in- 
adequate, though  loftily  severe.  Frederic  Douglass 
tells  me  that  a  lady  at  the  North  having  heard  him 
score  Webster  as  cruel,  made  answer  thus :  "  Mr. 
Douglass,  in  many  things  I  agree  with  you,  but  in 
that  verdict  not.  I  knew  Webster  well.  Depend 
upon  it,  he  is  a  tender-hearted  man." 


INTRODUCTION.  xvii 

Mr.  Webster  was  held  to  be  "  Ichabod  "  and  the 
"  lost  leader."  But  in  some  things  he  led,  and  leads 
still.  If  he  failed  us  at  the  pinch,  and  was  called 
false  at  any  crisis,  or  by  his  ambition  misled,  we  can- 
not afford  to  be  bitter  and  without  thanks.  Let  the 
bronze  monument  yonder  stand  !  The  nation  is  not 
so  furnished  with  statesmanship  and  patriotism  as 
to  find  any  economy  in  throwing  him  away.  From 
our  exchequer  we  cannot  afford  to  give  him  up.  I 
accord  with  Whipple  on  this  point. 

Macaulay,  whom  Mr.  Whipple  lauded,  forged  his 
earlier  style.  But  his  wit  and  humor  were  all  his  own, 
— the  one  a  flash  of  lightning,  the  other  a  drop  of  dew. 
"  I  know,"  said  one  to  him,  "  your  idea  of  a  public 
library,  if  you  had  a  million  dollars."  "  If  I  had  the 
million,"  he  answered,  "  I  should  nbt  have  the  idea." 
—  "  You  have  lost  your  mind,"  said  a  debater  to  him. 
"  It  is  plain  you  have  not  found  it,"  was,  in  a  solitary 
case  of  self-assertion,  his  reply.  "  My  lecture  is  a  dead 
failure,"  he  declared.  "  Never,"  the  Lyceum  President 
answered,  "  was  such  a  lecture  delivered  in  this  town." 
When  I  read  a  friendly  notice  of  my  own  to  him  of 
one  of  his  books,  he  held  his  handkerchief  over  his 
face.  My  regret  in  these  remarks,  nearly  forty  years 
later  than  my  first  estimate,  is  that  I  cannot  command 
his  skill  to  sketch  in  sketching  him,  while,  with  you, 
I  think  gratefully  and  reverently  of  his  spirit  going 
without  pain  as  a  breath  of  God. 

h 


xviii  INTRODUCTION. 

Let  me  at  least  testify  of  that  gentle  and  gracious 
nature  in  him,  so  undemonstrative  and  ashamed  to  ap- 
pear save  unawares.  How  good  and  kind  and  tender 
it  essentially  was,  unwilling  to  hurt,  incapable  of  giv- 
ing or  taking  offence,  and  appearing  untouched  only 
because  every  slight  or  injury  was,  as  it  seemed,  so 
instinctively  or  unconsciously  warded  or  shed  !  With 
his  matchless  wit  we  were  not  wounded,  but  charmed. 
It  was  a  razor,  to  shave  close  and  make  us  look  de- 
cent, not  to  draw  blood ;  or  a  lancet,  to  relieve. 

The  melancholy  Jacques  says  of  all  the  men  and 
women,  that  they  have  their  exits  and  their  entrances 
in  the  play  on  this  stage  of  the  world.  I  think,  or 
have  a  vision,  of  Fields  the  poet-publisher,  of  Gould 
the  sculptor,  and  of  Whipple  the  writer,  in  the  scene 
here  once  together,  —  a  band  of  brothers  gone  from 
this  theatre  of  time,  leaving  behind  the  mates  they 
loved  in  this  spectacle  of  earthly  space  and  in  the 
sacred  precincts  of  home.  We  speak  properly  of  any 
performance  on  the  boards  as  "  a  piece."  The  whole 
is  unseen,  beyond. 


RECOLLECTIONS 


EMINENT      MEN. 


SOME  RECOLLECTIONS   OF  EUFUS   CHOATE. 

RuFUS  Choate  enjoys  a  peculiar  and  exceptional 
fame  among  American  lawyers,  statesmen,  and  orators, 
because  of  his  unlikeness  to  any  of  his  celebrated  con- 
temporaries. One  of  his  friends  bluntly  remarked, 
"  Webster  is  like  other  folks,  only  there  is  more  of 
him ;  but  as  to  Choate,  who  ever  saw  or  knew  his 
like  ? "  He  not  only  idealized  but  individualized 
everything  he  touched ;  and  the  dryest  law-case,  when 
he  was  one  of  the  counsel  engaged,  was  converted 
into  a  thrilling  tragedy  or  tragi-comedy  founded  on 
an  actual  event.  He  was  a  poet  at  the  heart  of  liis 
nature,  and  instinctively  gave  a  dramatic  or  epical 
character  to  the  leading  persons  concerned  in  a 
jury  trial.  It  was  once  common  for  legal  pedants, 
possessed  of  learning  minus  genius,  to  denounce  as 
"  flummery "  the  arguments  of  this  advocate,  who 
possessed  learning  plus  genius ;  but  it  is  now  univer- 

1 


2  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

sally  conceded  that  he  was  profound  in  the  knowledge 
of  the  law,  that  he  was  both  an  acute  and  comprehen- 
sive reasoner,  and  that  his  practical  sagacity  in  the 
conduct  of  a  case  was  as  marked  as  the  romantic  in- 
terest with  which  he  invested  it.  It  is  to  be  feared, 
however,  that  this  shining  ornament  of  the  legal 
profession  will  be  hereafter  known  chiefly  by  the 
traditions  of  his  splendid  successes.  My  purpose 
is  simply  to  record  a  few  memories  illustrating  the 
force  and  flexibility  of  his  genius  and  the  geniality 
of  his  nature. 

My  admiration  of  Mr.  Choate  was  formed  a  long 
time  before  I  had  the  honor  and  pleasure  of  making 
his  acquaintance.  At  the  period  when  he  was  a  young 
lawyer,  practising  in  the  courts  of  Essex  County,  he 
"  pervaded  "  —  if  I  may  use  one  of  his  own  terms  — 
the  Salem  bookstores  in  his  leisure  hours.  He  was 
specially  attracted  to  the  store  of  Mr.  John  M.  Ives, 
and  he  never  entered  it  without  falling  into  conver- 
sation with  some  legal  or  illegal  brother  interested  in 
letters ;  and  he  never  left  it  without  leaving  in  the 
memory  of  those  who  listened  some  one  of  the  golden 
sentences  which  dropped  as  naturally  from  his  mouth 
as  pearls  from  the  lips  of  the  fabled  fairy.  There 
was  a  circulating  library  connected  with  Mr.  Ives's 
bookstore,  and  I  have  a  vivid  remembrance  when  as 
a  boy  I  was  prowling  among  the  books  on  the  shelves, 
suspending  my  decision  as  to  taking  out  a  novel  of 
Richardson,  or  Fielding,  or  Miss  Porter,  or  Scott,  of 
listening  with  a  certain  guilty  delight  at  the  chaffing 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  8 

going  on  among  my  elders  and  betters  in  the  front 
store.  I  remember  perfectly  how  I  was  impressed 
and  fascinated  by  the  appearance  of  Mr.  Choate.  He 
was  not  a  Thaddeus  of  Warsaw,  or  a  hero  of  the  type 
which  Mrs.  Radcliffe  had  stamped  on  my  imagina- 
tion ;  but  there  was  something  strange,  something 
"  Oriental,"  in  him  which  suggested  the  Arabian 
Nights.  In  after-years  I  wondered,  as  I  wondered 
then,  that  such  a  remarkable  creature  should  have 
dropped  down,  as  it  were,  into  Essex  County.  There 
seemed  to  be  no  connection  between  the  man  and  his 
environment.  He  flashed  his  meaning  in  pointed 
phrase  while  his  interlocutors  were  arraying  facts  and 
preparing  arguments,  and  darted  out  of  the  store  with 
a  ringing  laugh  before  they  had  time  to  send  a  cross- 
bow shaft  in  reply,  or  retort  to  the  Parthian  arrow 
he  had  gayly  sped  at  parting. 

Boy  as  I  was,  I  learned  then  what  was  characteristic 
of  Mr.  Choate  through  life,  —  his  horror  of  common- 
place. "Why,  he  seemed  to  say,  argue  about  a  thing 
which  an  intelligent  human  being  should  detect  at 
the  first  glance  ?  He  always  tried  to  evade  bores,  in 
youth  as  in  age ;  and  to  him  the  most  dreadful  of 
bores  were  well-meaning  men,  deficient  in  quickness 
of  apprehension  and  directness  of  insight,  who  were 
fond  of  exercising  their  powers  of  disputation  in  the 
weary  work  of  placing  on  a  logical  foundation  the 
indisputable.  Godwin  once  mentioned  to  Coleridge 
that  he  and  Mackintosh  had  been  engaged  for  three 
hours  in  an  argument,  without  arriving  at  a  definite 


4  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

conclusion.  "  If  there  had  been  a  man  of  genius  in 
the  room,"  Coleridge  retorted,  "  he  would  have  set- 
tled the  question  in  five  minutes."  Choate  had  this 
impatience  of  a  man  of  genius  with  long-winded 
controversies. 

I  may  add,  that  in  my  boyish  remembrances  the 
beauty  of  Choate's  face  and  person  early  caught  my 
fancy.  He  was  an  Apollo,  though,  as  he  walked  the 
streets  of  Salem,  he  was  an  Apollo  with  a  slouch.  He 
had  a  way  of  lifting  his  shoulders,  and  an  angular 
swinging  of  his  frame,  which  were  as  individual  as 
they  were  inartistic.  Yet  he  was,  on  the  whole,  the 
most  beautiful  young  man  I  ever  saw.  Thought, 
study,  care,  the  contentions  of  the  bar,  the  wear  and 
tear  of  an  unreposing  life,  at  last  broke  up  the  smooth- 
est and  comeliest  of  human  faces  into  weird  wrinkles, 
which  he  often  laughed  at  himself  when  he  surveyed 
his  countenance  as  depicted  by  the  photographer. 
Of  one  of 'these  likenesses,  in  which  the  sun  had  not 
spared  a  single  thought-ploughed  mark,  he  said,  "  It 
is  as  ugly  as  the  devil ;  but  still  I  must  admit  it  is 
like  —  very  like."  Yet  in  his  youth  that  face  almost 
realized  the  ideal  of  manly  beauty.  His  complexion 
was  brown,  but  health  infused  into  it  a  faint  red  tint 
which  made  it  singularly  charming  to  the  eye.  I 
recollect,  as  if  it  were  yesterday,  one  Sunday  afternoon 
when  he  entered  Dr.  Brazer's  church  in  Salem  just 
before  the  services  began.  He  marched  up  the  aisle 
(I  can  hit  on  no  better  expression  than  "  marched  ") 
and  entered   a  pew  just  above  that  in  which  I  was 


RUrUS  CHOATE.  6 

seated.  The  sermon  was  no  doubt  good,  —  as  all  the 
sermons  of  Dr.  Brazer  were  good,  —  but  my  attention 
was  fixed  on  Choate.  For  an  hour  I  watched  his 
expressive  face,  noticing  every  variation  of  its  lines, 
as  they  indicated  agreement  or  disa,greement  with 
the  eloquent  clergyman's  Unitarian  discourse ;  and 
all  I  knew  of  the  sermon  was  gathered  from  what  I 
considered  its  effect  on  the  wonderful  creature  who 
seemed  to  my  boyish  imagination  to  have  strayed 
into  the  pew  from  some  region  altogether  apart  from 
any  civilization  heretofore  known  to  Salem.  There 
was  something  mysterious  about  him.  In  glancing 
over  the  occupants  of  the  other  pews,  —  the  merchant 
aristocracy  of  the  town,  —  I  was  struck  by  their  com- 
monplace character,  as  contrasted  with  this  stranger, 
who  appeared  to  belong  to  another  race,  and  who 
might,  for  all  I  knew,  have  been  imported  by  these 
merchants  from  Calcutta  or  Singapore,  bringing  with 
him  the  suggestion  of  — 

"  Gums  of  Paradise  and  Eastern  air." 

He  was  then  in  the  perfection  of  his  manly  beauty, 
—  the  beauty  of  robust  physical  health  combined  with 
that  indefinable  beauty  which  comes  from  the  palpa- 
ble presence  of  intellect  and  genius  in  brow,  cheek, 
eye,  lip,  and  the  very  pose  of  the  head.  I  was  then 
about  ten  years  old ;  but  the  kind  of  admiring  wonder 
I  then  felt  in  looking  at  him  affected  me,  many  years 
afterward,  when  I  had  made  his  personal  acquaint- 
ance.    There  was  always   in  him   something   "  rich 


6  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

and  strange,"  something  foreign  to  our  New  England 
"  notions,"  something  which  distinguished  him  from 
all  other  eminent  Americans.  A  humorous  friend  of 
mine  once  declared  that  he  himself  was  originally  in- 
tended for  an  inhabitant  of  Jupiter,  but  the  Earth 
caught  him  in  his  passage  and  hauled  him  in.  Mr. 
Choate,  in  some  such  way,  always  seemed  to  me  to  have 
been  arrested  by  the  insolent  gravitating  power  lodged 
in  the  Earth,  and  drawn  violently  into  our  prosaic 
New  England  while  he  was  joyously  speeding  on  to  his 
appropriate  home  in  some  distant  Mars  or  Jupiter. 

As  regards  Mr.  Choate's  whole  nature,  I  was  im- 
pressed not  so  much  by  any  particular  faculty  as  by 
its  central  force.  He  was  fundamentally  strong  at 
the  heart  of  his  nature,  —  strong  in  personality,  strong 
in  will,  strong  in  mental  manhood ;  and  he  used  his 
rare  powers  not  merely  to  please,  persuade,  astonish, 
and  convince  those  whom  he  addressed,  but  to  over- 
come them.  He  must  have  been  personally  conscious 
of  that  grand  mood  which  Wordsworth  celebrates : 

"  Such  animation  often  do  I  find, 
Power  in  my  breast,  wings  growing  in  my  mind." 

In  his  diary,  July,  1844,  he  indicates  what  he 
considers  should  be  the  characteristics  of  a  legislator's 
speech.  These  are  :  "  Truth  for  the  staple,  good  taste 
the  form,  persuasion  to  act  for  the  end."  It  was  the 
"persuasion  to  act"  that  was  always  in  his  mind, 
whether  he  addressed  a  popular  gathering,  a  jury,  or 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States. 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  7 

Indeed,  in  jury  trials  his  main  object  was  to  influ- 
ence the  wills  of  the  twelve  men  before  him.  He 
addressed  their  understandings ;  he  fascinated  their 
imaginations  ;  he  stirred  their  feelings ;  but,  after  all, 
he  used  all  his  powers  in  subordination  to  that  one 
primal  power  which  dwelt  in  his  magnetic  individual- 
ity, by  which  he  subdued  them,  bringing  on  that  part 
of  their  being  which  uttered  its  reluctant  "  yes  "  or 
"  no  "  the  pressure  of  a  stronger  nature  as  well  as  of 
a  larger  mind.  As  an  advocate,  he  thoroughly  under- 
stood that  men  in  the  aggregate  are  not  reasonable 
beings,  but  men  with  the  capacity  of  being  occasion- 
ally made  reasonable,  if  their  prejudices  are  once 
blown  away  by  a  superior  force  of  blended  reason 
and  emotion,  —  in  other  words,  by  force  of  being. 
His  triumphs  at  the  bar  were  due  to  the  fact  that  he 
was  a  powerful  man,  victorious  over  other  men  be- 
cause he  had  a  stronger  manhood,  a  stronger  self- 
hood, than  anybody  on  the  jury  he  addressed. 

On  one  occasion  I  happened  to  be  a  witness  in  a 
case  where  a  trader  was  prosecuted  for  obtaining 
goods  under  false  pretences.  Mr.  Choate  took  the 
ground  that  the  seeming  knavery  of  the  accused  was 
due  to  the  circumstance  that  he  had  a  deficient  busi- 
ness intelligence,  —  in  short,  that  he  unconsciously 
rated  all  his  geese  as  swans.  He  was  right  in  his 
view.  The  foreman  of  the  jury,  however,  was  a  hard- 
headed,  practical  man,  a  model  of  business  intellect 
and  integrity,  but  with  an  incapacity  of  understanding 
any  intellect  or  conscience  radically  differing  from  his 


8  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OE 

own.  Mr.  Choate's  argument,  so  far  as  the  facts  and 
the  law  were  concerned,  was  through  in  an  hour. 
Still  he  went  on  speaking.  Hour  after  hour  passed, 
and  yet  he  continued  to  speak  with  constantly  in- 
creasing eloquence,  repeating  and  recapitulating,  with- 
out any  seeming  reason,  facts  which  he  had  already 
stated  and  arguments  which  he  had  already  urged. 
The  truth  was,  as  I  gradually  learned,  that  he  was 
engaged  in  a  hand-to-hand  —  or  rather  in  a  brain-to- 
brain  and  a  heart-to-heart — contest  with  the  foreman, 
whose  resistance  he  was  determined  to  break  down, 
but  who  confronted  him  for  three  hours  with  defiance 
observable  in  every  rigid  line  of  his  honest  counte- 
nance. "  You  fool  1 "  was  the  burden  of  the  advo- 
cate's ingenious  argument ;  "  you  rascal !"  was  the 
phrase  legibly  printed  on  the  foreman's  incredulous 
face.  But  at  last  the  features  of  the  foreman  began 
to  relax,  and  at  the  end  the  stern  lines  melted  into 
acquiescence  with  the  opinion  of  the  advocate,  who 
had  been  storming  at  the  defences  of  his  mind,  his 
heart,  and  his  conscience  for  five  hours,  and  had 
now  entered  as  victor.  He  compelled  the  foreman  to 
admit  the  unpleasant  fact  that  there  were  existing 
human  beings  whose  mental  and  moral  constitution 
differed  from  his  own,  and  who  were  yet  as  honest 
in  intention  as  he  was,  but  lacked  his  clear  percep- 
tion and  sound  judgment.  The  verdict  was,  "  Not 
guilty."  It  was  a  just  verdict ;  but  it  was  mercilessly 
assailed  by  merchants  who  had  lost  money  by  the 
prisoner,  and  who  were  hounding  him  down  as  an 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  9 

enemy  to  the  human  race,  as  another  instance  of 
Choate's  lack  of  mental  and  moral  honesty  in  the 
defence  of  persons  accused  of  crime.  The  fact  that 
the  foreman  of  the  jury  which  returned  the  verdict 
belonged  to  the  class  that  most  vehemently  attacked 
Choate  was  sufficient  of  itself  to  disprove  such  alle- 
gations. As  I  listened  to  Choate's  argument  in  this 
case,  I  felt  assured  that  he  would  go  on  speaking 
until  he  dropped  dead  on  the  floor,  rather  than  have 
relinquished  his  clutch  on  the  soul  of  the  one  man 
on  the  jury  whom  he  knew  would  control  the  opinion 
of  the  others. 

Mr.  Choate  was  well  aware  of  the  contemptuous 
criticism  made  on  the  peculiarities  of  his  manner, 
both  in  respect  to  elocution  and  rhetoric.  Having 
within  himself  the  proud  consciousness  of  unrecog- 
nized power,  he  notes  in  his  diary,  under  the  date  of 
September,  1844  :  "  If  I  live,  all  blockheads  which 
are  shaken  at  certain  mental  peculiarities  shall  know 
and  feel  a  reasoner,  a  lawyer,  and  a  man  of  business." 
Now  as  every  blockhead  is  still  entitled  to  the  claim 
of  being  "  a  man  and  a  brother,"  there  is  something 
delicious  in  this  substitution  of  "  which  "  for  "  who  " 
in  referring  to  the  ceremonious  and  pompous  block- 
heads of  the  bar;  for,  grammatically,  this  change 
of  the  pronoun  reduces  them  from  the  dignity  of 
persons  into  "  animals  and  inanimate  things." 

Mr.  Choate  of  course  possessed  the  art  of  conceal- 
ing the  art  by  which  he  overcame  opposition.  In  his 
steady  pressure  on  the  wills  of  the  jury  he  appeared 


10  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

to  be  cosily  arguing  with  them,  or  lifting  them  into 
a  region  of  impassioned  sentiment  and  imagination 
where  he  was  at  home,  and  where  the  jury  were  made 
to  feel  that  they  shared  with  him  all  the  delights  of 
such  a  lofty  communion  with  everything  beautiful 
and  sublime.  In  the  celebrated  Tirrell  trial,  the  in- 
habitants of  Boston  —  constituting  themselves  into  a 
jury,  deciding  on  the  evidence  presented  in  newspaper 
reports  —  had  declared  that  the  accused  was  guilty  of 
murder,  and  should  be  hanged.  The  judgment  of  the 
most  eminent  representatives  of  the  Bench  and  the 
Bar  was  this,  —  that  the  verdict  of  "  Not  guilty  "  was 
legally  right  and  just.  But  the  jury  had  a  hard  time 
of  it  when  they  returned  to  their  usual  avocations, 
as  all  their  companions  and  friends  jeered  at  them 
for  being  taken  in  by  Choate's  "  humbug."  One  of 
these  jurymen  defended  himself  by  a  statement  which 
has  survived:  "Oh!"  he  declared,  "we  didn't  care 
a  sixpence  for  that  stuff  about  som-nam-bulism ;  but 
then,  you  know,  we  could  n't  believe  the  testimony 
of  them  abandoned  women.  Now,  could  we  ?  "  He 
had  yielded  to  Choate  without  knowing  it,  and  had 
yielded  on  the  point  where  the  Government's  case 
was  defective,  —  a  point  which  Choate  had  specially 
emphasized. 

During  Mr.  Choate's  contests  with  the  leaders  of 
the  Suffolk  Bar  he  was  once  opposed  by  an  impudent 
advocate  from  another  State,  imported  specially  to 
put  him  down  by  sheer  force  of  assurance.  Choate 
described  him  as  perverting  the  law  with  "  an  imper- 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  11 

turbable  perpendicularity  of  assertion "  which  it  was 
difficult  to  upset.  On  this  occasion  the  lawyer  closed 
his  argument  with  the  remark  that  he  was  more  con- 
firmed in  his  view  of  the  law  of  the  case,  because  the 
distinguished  counsel  opposed  to  him  had  taken  the 
same  ground  in  an  argument  a  few  days  before  at 
Lowell.  Instead  of  denying  the  false  assertion,  which 
most  lawyers  would  have  done,  Choate  quietly  replied, 
"  Yes,  and  was  overruled  by  the  Court."  It  seems 
to  me  that  this  is  a  wonderful  example  of  his  quick- 
ness in  instantly  deciding  on  the  right  way  of  meet- 
ing before  a  jury  a  seemingly  crushing  appeal  to 
popular  prejudice. 

On  one  occasion  Mr.  Choate  was  called  upon  to 
defend  a  Roman  Catholic  priest,  who  was  accused  of 
making  what  appeared  to  be  the  first  approaches  of 
a  criminal  assault  on  a  girl  he  met  in  one  of  the  side 
streets  of  Boston.  The  advocate  took  what  was  in 
all  probability  the  true  view  of  the  situation,  —  that 
the  priest  was  returning  from  his  church  absorbed  in 
his  devotions,  had  accidentally  met  the  girl  in  his 
path,  and  that  the  abrupt  jostling  with  the  fair  prose- 
cutor was  accidental.  But  the  case  was  prosecuted 
with  all  the  animosity  of  Protestant  prejudice,  and 
the  foreman  of  the  jury  was  an  Orthodox  deacon.  I 
remember  of  the  case  only  this  sentence  :  "  I  have 
proved  to  you,  gentlemen,  that  this  collision  was 
purely  an  accident ;  such  an  accident,  Mr.  Foreman, 
as  might  have  happened  to  you  or  to  me  returning 
from   a  Union  meeting,  or  a  Liberty  meeting,  or  a 


12  SOME  EECOLLECTIONS  OF 

Jenny  Lind  concert,  or,  what  is  infinitely  better,  a 
montJdy  concert  of  prayer.^^  If  solemnity  was  ever 
imaged  in  a  human  countenance,  it  was  when  Choate, 
advancing  to  the  deacon,  brought  his  sad,  weird, 
wrinkled  face  into  close  proximity  with  the  foreman's, 
and  in  low,  deep  tones  uttered  that  magical  form  of 
words  by  which  orthodox  Protestants  recognize  each 
other  all  over  New  England,  —  the  "  monthly  concert 
of  prayer."  I  think  he  gained  his  case  by  that  happy 
display  of  sympathy  with  the  absorption  in  divine 
things  which  is  supposed  to  follow  such  a  "  concert " 
in  all  Congregational  churches. 

In  one  of  Mr.  Choate's  contentions  at  the  Bar,  his 
opponent,  a  man  distinguished  for  his  high  moral 
character,  took  it  into  his  head  that  his  learned 
brother  had  impugned  his  honesty ;  and  he  made  a 
fervid  speech,  declaring  that  such  an  imputation, 
during  his  long  professional  career,  had  never  been 
even  insinuated  before.  Mr.  Choate,  preserving  his 
admirable  composure,  disclaimed  any  such  imputa- 
tion, with  the  preliminary  statement  that  he  was 
quite  unprepared  "  for  such  a  tempestuous  outbreak 
of  extraordinary  sensibility "  on  the  part  of  his 
friend.  His  power  of  constructing  what  may  be 
called  architectural  sentences  like  this  on  the  spur 
of  the  moment  was  by  no  means  the  least  of  his 
gifts.  Adjectives,  quaint,  witty,  or  resounding,  in- 
stantly came  at  his  call  to  describe,  illustrate,  or 
qualify  any  substantive  that  was  uppermost  in  his 
mind  at  the  time. 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  18 

In  an  insurance  trial  in  which  Mr.  Choate  was 
engaged,  he  spent  a  day  or  more  in  the  cross-examina- 
tion of  a  witness  who  swore  positively  as  to  the  facts 
in  dispute,  but  who  was  compelled  by  the  advocate's 
searching  questions  to  admit  his  general  bad  char- 
acter. The  testimony  of  this  scamp  had  to  be  broken 
down,  or  the  case  would  be  lost.  In  addressing  the 
jury,  Mr.  Choate  gave  a  vivid  presentation  of  the 
vices  and  crimes  of  the  witness,  whom  he  represented 
as  the  basest  and  meanest  of  mankind ;  and  then 
asked,  "  Do  you  suppose,  gentlemen,  that  in  this  vast 
violation  of  all  the  sentiments  and  virtues  that  bind 
men  together  in  civil  society,  veracity  alone  would 
survive  in  the  chaos  of  such  a  character  ?  — '  the 
last  rose  of  summer '  on  such  a  soil  ? "  The  emphasis 
on  "  veracity "  and  "  such "  was  potent  enough  to 
kill  the  witness.  The  jury  disbelieved  him,  and  Mr. 
Choate  gained  his  case.  The  rogue  may  or  may  not 
have  testified  truly  as  to  the  point  under  discussion, 
but  truth  could  not  be  reasonably  expected  from  a 
person  who  was  self-convicted  of  almost  every  wicked- 
ness but  perjury. 

In  his  arguments  for  persons  who  had  become 
complicated  in  seemingly  criminal  acts  of  which  they 
were,  at  least,  not  so  guilty  as  they  were  accused  of 
being,  his  masterly  way  of  putting  himself  by  imagi- 
nation in  the  place  of  his  clients,  and  exhibiting  all 
the  pathos  that  could  be  elicited  from  their  embar- 
rassments and  struggles,  often  drenched  his  clients 
themselves  in  irrepressible  tears.     They  hardly  knew 


14  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

before  what  heroes  and  martyrs  they  were.  They 
wept  at  the  eloquent  recapitulation  of  what  they  had 
suffered  and  done ;  they  became  poetic  personages, 
worthy  of  the  pen  of  Scott  or  Dickens ;  indeed,  they 
were  so  much  affected  that  they  considered  Lawyer 
Choate  should  charge  little  for  presenting  them  be- 
fore the  community  in  their  true  light,  and  there- 
fore often  forgot  or  neglected  to  pay  him  anything. 
His  dramatic  power  in  exhibiting  the  interior  feelings 
of  the  half  guilty,  the  quarter  guilty,  and  the  guilty 
who  are  perfectly  innocent  in  their  own  conceit,  and 
therefore  regard  a  prosecution  as  a  persecution,  was 
so  wonderful  that  many  of  the  persons  who  were 
acquitted  through  his  exertions  never  paid  him  what 
they  would  have  paid  an  advocate  who  had  less  iden- 
tified himself  with  their  interests  and  characters. 
Indeed,  after  his  work  was  done  he  appeared  himself 
to  set  a  modest  estimate  on  its  value.  The  occasions 
when  he  obtained  large  fees  were  due  to  his  partner, 
who  made  the  contracts  beforehand ;  for  Mr.  Choate 
generally  considered  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  get- 
ting a  verdict  for  his  clients  formidable  until  the  case 
was  settled,  and  was  indifferent  to  the  amount  of  the 
fee  only  after  he  had  succeeded. 

But  he  was  not  only  an  accomplished  lawyer :  he 
was,  at  times,  an  eager  politician.  I  will  try  to  recall 
some  sentences  in  his  popular  addresses.  In  a  cam- 
paign appeal  to  the  Boston  Whigs,  when  Polk,  a 
comparatively  unknown  man,  was  the  Democratic  can- 
didate for  the  Presidency,  Mr.  Choate  gave  full  play 


RUFUS  CIIOATE.  16 

to  his  peculiar  wit  and  fancy.  "  We  will,"  he  ex- 
claimed "  return  James  K.  Polk  to  the  Convention 
that  discovered  him ! "  In  depicting  Polk's  sure  de- 
feat, he  declared  that  he  would  "  disappear  like  the 
lost  Pleiad,  where  no  telescope  could  find  him ! "  In 
reading  an  "open  letter  "  of  the  Free-soil  Democrats, 
"  surreptitiously  "  published  in  the  New  York  "  Even- 
ing Post,"  he  paused  at  the  end,  as  if  overcome  by 
surprise.  "  I  find,  gentlemen,  that  this  letter  is 
marked  '  private  and  confidential,'  and  such,  I  trust, 
you  will  consider  it !  "  The  idea  of  confiding  a  secret 
of  that  sort  to  three  thousand  persons  struck  every 
man  in  the  audience  with  a  sense  of  its  humor,  and 
there  was  a  roar  of  applause,  which  for  some  minutes 
prevented  the  orator  from  proceeding.  On  another 
occasion  he  addressed  a  Union  meeting  in  Faneuil 
Hall,  composed  equally  of  Whigs  and  Democrats.  I 
wish  types  could  express  the  wit  of  one  passage  by 
indicating  the  rise,  culmination,  and  sudden  fall  of 
his  voice.  "  You  Wliig  ! "  he  exclaimed,  "  and  you 
Democrat    WHO    ARE  JUST    AS   GOOD    AS  A 

WHIG in  your  own  opinion  !  "       Thc   last    claUSO    should   bC 

printed  in  the  smallest  type  which  thc  printer  can 
command.  The  laughter  which  succeeded  the  quali- 
fication was  deafening,  and  it  came  from  the  repre- 
sentatives of  both  parties. 

When  Mr.  Sumner's  first  election  to  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States  was  in  doubt,  Sumner  met  Choate 
as  he  was  entering  the  Court  House.  "  Ah,  Mr. 
Choate,"  said  Sumner  pleasantly,  "  marching,  I  sup- 


16  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

pose,  to  another  forensic  triumph?"  Choate  had  on 
his  old  camlet  cloak,  known  to  all  members  of  the 
Bar ;  and  drawing  it  melodramatically  up  over  his 
weird  face,  and  looking  like  one  of  the  witches  in 
"  Macbeth,"  he  mockingly  answered,  in  his  deepest 
tones,  "  Glamis  thou  art,  and  Cawdor ! "  and  then  dis- 
appeared through  the  door.  Sumner  was  accused  of 
lacking  the  perception  of  humor,  but  he  always  told 
this  incident  as  if  he  had  it  in  a  high  degree. 

A  distinguished  Free-soiler,  after  the  nomination  of 
Taylor  for  the  Presidency,  accosted  Mr.  Choate  in  the 
street,  and  told  him  that  the  Free-soil  section  of  the 
Whig  party  was  determined  to  oppose  the  nomina- 
tion at  the  polls.  "  What  can  you  do  ? "  said  Mr. 
Choate.  "  Perhaps  little,"  was  the  reply ;  "  but  at 
least  Massachusetts  can  fire  her  gun  in  the  air." 
"  Yes,"  at  once  retorted  Mr.  Choate,  "  and  hit  her 
guardian  angel  in  the  eye." 

Wlien  Dr.  Webster,  the  murderer  of  Parkman,  was 
in  prison  after  his  conviction,  Mr.  Choate  met  in  a 
street  car  an  eminent  clergyman,  who  was  inclined 
to  believe  that  the  criminal  was  innocent,  and  who 
visited  him  frequently.  "  How  do  you  find  the  ob- 
ject of  your  pastoral  care?"  asked  Mr.  Choate. 
"  Well, "  was  the  reply,  "  1  always  find  him  m." 
"  And,"  returned  Mr.  Choate,  "  it  will  be  long,  I 
think,  before  you  find  him  owf."  Indeed,  in  repar- 
tee he  always  had  the  last  word.  Nobody  ever 
went  away  from  him  with  the  consolation  that  he 
had  surpassed  him  in  quickness  of  retort. 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  Iv 

In  one  of  his  literary  lectures,  Mr.  Choato  referred 
to  the  fact  that  Marie  Antoinette,  after  lier  unsuccess- 
ful attempt  to  escape  with  her  husband  from  France, 
entered  on  the  evening  of  that  day  her  new  prison- 
house  a  beautiful  woman,  and  on  the  next  moi-ning 
emerged  from  it  with  her  loveliness  all  gone.  He 
put  it  in  this  way :  "  The  beauty  of  Austria  fell  from 
her  brow,  like  a  veil,  in  a  single  night."  Anybody  who 
appreciates  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  imagination " 
cannot  fail  to  note  the  force  of  "  the  beauty  of  Austria." 
It  was  not  merely  the  queen's  individual  beauty, 
but  the  beauty  of  her  mother,  Maria  Theresa,  and 
of  all  the-  princesses  of  the  Hapsburg  House  since 
its  foundation,  that  fell  from  ?ier  brow  '•^  like  a  veiV^ 
in  a  single  night.  The  hopelessness  of  the  struggle 
of  all  rank  and  beauty  against  the  ghastly  uprising 
of  an  oppressed  people  is  also  indicated  in  this  grand 
imaginative  generalization.  The  beauty  was  a  mere 
"veil,"  that  must  be  dropped  when  the  fierce  pas- 
sions of  a  famished  and  enraged  populace  overturned 
all  the  sentiments  which  sprung  from  an  aristocratic 
chivalry,  based  on  a  worship  of  beauty  nobly  born. 
What  was  most  curious  in  this  utterance  was  the 
lowness  of  the  tone  of  the  orator's  voice  as  he  de- 
livered it.  I  am  sure  that  the  words  "  like  a  veil " 
could  not  have  been  heard  by  fifty  persons  among 
the  three  thousand  who  listened  to  the  lecture.  I 
happened  to  be  very  near  the  speaker,  and  noted 
how  completely  he  seemed  abstracted  from  the  audi- 
ence when,  in  a  tone  of  thrilling,  tender  sadness,  he 

2 


18  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

interpolated  this  statement  as  a  parenthesis  between 
the  rush  of  words  which  preceded  and  followed  it. 

On  one  hot  summer  afternoon,  a  day  or  two  after 
he  had  delivered  his  address  on  Kossuth  before  the 
literary  societies  of  a  Vermont  College,  —  an  address 
all  ablaze  with  the  characteristics  of  his  resplendent 
rhetoric,  but  still  with  a  statesman-like  judgment 
and  forecast  regulating  its  impassioned  eloquence,  — 
I  met  him  at  the  Boston  Athenaeum,  and  naturally 
alluded  to  the  splendid  success  of  his  oration. 
"  Ah ! "  he  replied,  with  an  immense  yawn,  "  was  it 
a  success  ?  I  thought  not.  By-the-way,  did  n't  you 
talk  to  the  same  societies  last  year  ? "  I  was  reluc- 
tantly compelled  to  admit  that  I  was  guilty  of  the 
ofience.  "  Well,  the  truth  is  (between  ourselves, 
mind  you !)  that  I  found  you  had  so  corrupted  the 
young  men  with  your  confounded  rhetoric,  that  my 
plain  common-sense  had  no  effect  on  them  what- 
ever." The  impressive  seriousness  with  which  this 
reproof  was  given  was  only  relieved  by  a  power, 
which  Mr.  Choate  possessed,  of  indicating  the  humor 
of  a  remark  through  a  peculiar  flash  from  the  white 
portion  of  his  left  eye,  while  the  rest  of  his  coun- 
tenance remained  in  immovable  and  impenetrable 
gravity.  The  wink  he  gave  me !  —  shall  I  ever 
forget  it  ? 

On  another  of  the  occasions  when  I  had  the  pleas- 
ure of  meeting  him,  the  topic  was  the  relative  rank 
of  the  great  generals  of  the  world.  "  On  the  whole," 
lie   said, "  I  think   we   must  take   Hannibal   as  the 


RUFUS  Clio  ATE.  19 

greatest  of  them  all.  For  just  look  at  the  effront- 
ery of  the  fellow,  scaling  the  Alps  with  a  lot  of 
Carthaginians  —  ragamuffins,  nigyers  —  to  fight  the 
Destinij  of  Rome !  And  then,  you  know,  the  scamp, 
with  his  rascal  rout,  nearly  succeeded  in  his  purpose 
of  overturning  the  design  even  of  Divine  Providence ! 
You  may  depend  upon  it,  he  is  the  biggest  general 
of  the  whole  gang  of  them ! " 

Choate  was  never  tired  of  eulogizing  Cicero  and 
Burke.  "  The  man,"  he  once  said  to  me,  "  who  will 
write  an  article  adequately  describing,  comparing, 
and  contrasting  those  two  men  of  genius  will  do  a 
great  work."  "  But,"  I  answered,  "  that  is  the  very 
thing  that  all  of  us  are  eager  for  you  to  do.  You  can 
do  it  better  than  anybody  else."  "  Oh,  of  course," 
he  answered,  with  a  shrug  of  his  shoulders ;  "  you 
may  be  sure  it  shall  be  done."  Of  course  he  never 
did  it. 

On  a  transient  meeting  with  him,  the  conversation 
turned  on  the  charge  that  Burke's  seeming  apostasy 
to  the  cause  of  liberty  in  his  works  on  the  French 
Revolution  was  caused  by  a  desire  for  power  and 
a  pension.  I  alluded  to  the  impossibility  that  char- 
acter and  passion  could  be  subsidized  as  well  as 
imagination  and  genius ;  that  Burke  must  have  been 
morally  honest  in  writing  the  works  that  incident- 
ally gave  him  some  fifteen  thousand  dollars  a  year, 
and  that  those  writers  who  accused  him  of  being 
bought  by  the  English  court  grossly  misapprehended 
him.     "  Misapprehended   him  !  "    exclaimed    Choate ; 


20  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

"  they  were  beasts  I  beasts  !  "  The  way  he  rose  from 
his  chair  and  strode  about  the  room  as  he  uttered 
this  opinion  convinced  me,  at  least,  that  his  own 
political  course  could  never  have  been  influenced  by 
the  desire  cither  of  power  or  money.  Indeed,  every- 
body who  knew  Choate  knew  that  there  was  nothing 
in  the  power  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  to 
give  in  the  way  of  political  preferment  that  he  re- 
garded as  worth  striving  for  as  a  matter  of  political 
ambition.  He  had  been  a  Representative  and  a 
Senator  in  Congress ;  but  as  he  grew  old  he  disliked 
everything  in  politics  which  drew  him  away  from  his 
library  during  the  brief  hours  of  leisure  which  his 
professional  engagements  enabled  him  to  enjoy.  He 
spoke  for  his  political  party  and  his  political  convic- 
tions when  he  was  called  upon  to  do  so,  but  the 
ordinary  details  of  politics  were  abliorrent  to  him. 
They  were  a  bore.  The  only  assaults  on  his  politi- 
cal integrity  were  made  during  the  later  years  of 
his  life.  Those  who  opposed  his  opinions  —  and  I 
ranked  among  them  —  must  have  known  that  it  was 
a  real  sentiment  of  patriotism,  however  misdirected, 
and  not  any  paltry  love  of  lucre  or  place,  that  in- 
spired the  thrilling  addresses  with  which  he  bravely 
confronted  the  dominant  sentiment  of  Massachusetts 
after  1850.  It  is  curious  that  those  who  accuse  him 
of  cowardice  and  time-serving  at  this  period  forget 
that  only  obloquy  could  result  from  the  position  he 
took.  The  coward  and  the  time-server  are  seen  in 
the  wake  of  the  reformer,  when  the  reformer  has  the 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  21 

vote  of  the  State  with  him.  Choate  withstood  an 
impulse  so  strong  that  any  sagacity  much  less  keen 
than  his  must  have  known  that  it  was  more  politic 
to  follow  than  to  withstand  the  movement;  but  he 
deliberately  chose  the  unpopular  side,  and  cheerfully 
submitted  to  be  lampooned  by  hundreds  of  politicians 
who  would  have  hailed  him  as  the  noblest  and  most 
eloquent  of  men  if  he  had  only  drifted  with  the 
stream  instead  of  manfully  breasting  it.  His  opinions 
were  so  opposed  to  mine,  that  it  is  a  delight  to  re- 
cord this  testimony  to  his  political  honesty.  He  had 
nothing  to  gain  by  the  course  he  pursued,  and  he 
had  much  to  lose.  Now  that  the  passions  of  that 
time  have  subsided,  all  Republicans  can  afford  to  do 
justice  to  Choate.  He  was  not  on  their  side ;  but 
had  he  been  on  their  side,  they  would  have  forced 
honors  upon  him.  He  never,  by-the-way,  during  his 
political  career  had  any  need  to  solicit  office ;  it  was 
always  freely  urged  upon  him  as  a  testimony  of  his 
fellow-citizens  to  his  genius  and  capacity. 

But  to  return  to  my  recollections  of  him.  It  Avas 
impossible  to  meet  him  for  even  half  a  minute,  as  he 
was  striding  from  his  dwelling  to  his  daily  business, 
without  eliciting  from  his  ever-active  mind  some 
quaint  remark.  A  friend  of  mine  greeted  him  one 
day  just  as  he  was  turning  from  Washington  Street 
into  a  narrow  lane  leading  to  the  Court  House.  Mr. 
Choate  answered  the  salutation,  and,  as  he  turned 
to  go  down  the  narrow  passage  said,  Avith  much 
mock  gravity,  "  Convenient,  though  ignominious  !  " 


22  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

He  was  once  engaged  in  the  great  legal  controversy 
between  the  different  owners  of  water-power  on  the 
Blackstone  River.  The  case  was  one  which  really 
rested  on  nice  mathematical  computations,  and  was 
finally  settled  by  mathematicians.  Choate  was  puz- 
zled by  the  intricacy  of  the  case,  and  meeting  Mr. 
Folsom,  the  librarian  of  the  Boston  Athenaeum,  one 
morning  in  a  book-store,  he  said  to  him :  "  Pray, 
Mr.  Folsom,  have  we  in  the  Athenaeum  any  books 
relating  to  the  flow  of  water,  the  turning  of  it  back, 
and  playing  the  devil  with  it  generally  ?  " 

There  was  so  much  intensity  in  Mr.  Choate's  nature 
that  I  often  wondered  how  he  could  help  tormenting 
himself  in  thinkhig  over  the  cases  he  lost,  where  the 
verdict  should  have  been  for  the  side  on  which  he 
was  engaged.  One  afternoon,  after  he  had  made  an 
address  to  the  Legislature,  or  a  committee  of  the 
Legislature,  of  one  of  the  New  England  States,  and 
had  plainly  failed  of  success  through  a  political  pre- 
judice excited  against  him  by  the  opposing  counsel, 
I  met  him  calmly  exploring  the  alcoves  of  the  Athe- 
nffium  in  search  of  some  book.  In  alluding  to  the 
palpable  injustice  of  the  reception  of  his  legal  argu- 
ment the  day  before,  I  expressed  my  astonishment 
that  he  should  seem  so  careless  about  the  result. 
"  Oh ! "  he  answered,  "  when  I  have  once  argued  a 
case,  and  it  is  settled,  I  am  done  with  it.  I  cast  it 
forcibly  out  of  my  mind,  and  never  allow  it  to  trouble 
my  peace.  I  should  go  mad,"  he  added,  with  a 
sudden  lift  of  his  hand  through  his  abundant  locks. 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  23 

"  if  I  allowed  it  to  abide  in  my  thoughts.  What, 
by-the-way,  do  you  think  of  this  curious  Life  of  Shel- 
ley, written  by  a  fellow  who  calls  himself  a  Jefferson 
somebody  —  Hogg  ?  "  In  an  instant  the  conversation 
was  thus  changed  to  Shelley  and  his  latest  biogra- 
pher. I  never  met  a  man  whose  genius  was  as  sen- 
sitive as  his,  who  had  such  a  complete  control  of  his 
mind  and  sensibility.  He  was  the  absolute  autocrat 
of  all  the  thoughts  and  fancies  teeming  in  his  fertile 
mind,  exercised  over  them  a  tyrannous  dominion, 
and  never  allowed  them  to  possess  liim,  but  always 
possessed  them. 

One  of  the  charms  of  Mr.  Choate's  conversation 
was  his  habit  of  exaggeration.  To  attend  the  per- 
formance of  Mozart's  "  Don  Giovanni "  was  like  listen- 
ing, he  said,  to  ten  thousand  forests  of  birds.  He 
knew  that  no  exaggeration  in  mere  words  could 
adequately  express  the  delight  which  a  sympathetic 
mind  feels  in  coming  into  vital  acquaintance  with 
a  work  of  transcendent  genius  in  any  department 
of  literature  and  the  fine  arts.  Ten  thousand  birds 
would  be  a  small  testimony  to  the  melodies  of 
Mozart ;  but  ten  thousand  forests  of  birds  is  a  com- 
parison which  indicates  the  rapture  of  wonder  and 
admiration  that  Mozart's  masterpiece  excites  in  all 
souls  capable  of  feeling  its  beauty.  With  this  ten- 
dency to  verbal  exaggeration,  Choate  had  that  instan- 
taneous humorous  recoil  from  extravagant  assertion 
characteristic  of  ardent  natures  whose  sense  of  the 
ludicrous  is  as  quick  as  their  sense  of  the  beautiful 


24  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OE 

and  the  sublime.  "  Interpret  to  me  the  libretto," 
he  said  to  his  daughter,  "  lest  I  dilate  at  the  wrong 
emotion."  Sydney  Smith  never  said  anything  better 
than  that ! 

Nobody  at  the  Bar  ever  equalled  him  in  paying 
ironical  compliments  to  the  judges  who  blocked  his 
way  to  the  hearts  and  understandings  of  juries. 
Judge  Shaw  was  specially  noted  for  the  gruff  way 
in  which  he  interposed  such  obstacles,  and  Shaw's 
depth  of  legal  learning  was  not  more  conspicuous 
than  his  force  of  character.  "  'Tis  n't  so,  Mr.  Choate," 
was  a  frequent  interruption,  when  Shaw  was  on  the 
Bench  and  Choate  was  arguing  a  case  before  him. 
Choate's  side  remarks  on  the  judge  have  passed  into 
the  stereotyped  jokes  of  the  Bar,  and  are  now  some- 
what venerable.  One  is,  I  think,  not  commonly 
stated  in  the  exact  words.  "  I  always  approach  Judge 
Shaw,"  he  said, "  as  a  savage  approaches  his  fetich,  — 
knowing  that  he  is  ugly,  but  feeling  that  he  is  great." 
Of  Judge  Story  he  once  remarked  :  "  I  never  heard 
him  pronounce  a  judgment  in  which  he  did  not  argue 
the  case  better  than  the  counsel  on  cither  side ;  and 
for  which,"  he  added,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  "  he 
might  very  properly  have  been  impeached."  He  de- 
liglited  in  gravely  joking  with  a  judge.  Thus  he 
once  asked  that  a  case  might  be  postponed,  owing  to 
his  engagement  in  another  court.  The  judge  replied 
that  the  case  was  one  in  which  he  might  .write  out 
his  argument.  With  a  mock  solemnity,  which  it 
always  seemed  to  me  no  other  human  countenance 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  26 

could  so  readily  assume,  he  replied,  "  I  ■write  well, 
your  Honor,  but  slowly^  As  his  handwriting  resem- 
bled the  tracks  of  wildcats,  with  their  claws  dipped 
in  ink,  madly  dashing  over  the  surface  of  a  folio 
sheet  of  white  paper,  the  assembled  Bar  could  not 
restrain  their  laughter.  Indeed,  it  is  affirmed  that 
he  could  not  decipher  his  own  handwriting  after  a 
case  was  concluded,  and  had  to  call  in  experts  to 
explain  it  to  himself.  He  congratulated  himself  on 
the  fact  that  if  he  failed  to  get  a  living  at  the  Bar, 
he  could  still  go  to  China  and  support  himself  by  his 
pen ;  that  is,  by  decorating  tea-chests. 

On  one  occasion  he  was  employed  by  a  half-crazed 
litigant  to  carry  a  case,  dismissed  by  the  court  below, 
to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State.  It  was  a  case 
resembling  the  one  immortalized  by  Scott,  —  that 
of  Peter  Peebles  versus  Plainstaincs  ;  but  the  Peter 
Peebles  in  this  controversy  was  as  rich  as  he  was 
litigious.  Choate  frankly  told  him  that  the  excep- 
tions his  counsel  had  taken  were  of  no  account  in 
law;  but  the  client  insisted  that  he  should  present 
them  to  the  assembled  judges,  and  was  indifferent  as 
to  the  fee.  There  never  was  a  more  solemn  face  pre- 
sented to  a  bench  of  jurists  than  the  face  of  Choate,  as 
he  argued  point  after  point  of  this  hopeless  ease ;  but 
it  was  observed  that  every  time  he  made  a  new  point 
he  introduced  it  with  a  sly  wink  to  some  one  of  the 
lawyers  in  attendance.  The  Bench  and  the  lawyers 
were  tormented  with  the  agony  which  comes  from 
laughter  decorously  suppressed,  while  the  advocate, 


26  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

except  his  occasional  winks  to  his  brother  lawyers, 
was  the  very  personification  of  legal  gravity. 

At  dinner  parties  he  was  the  most  delightful  of 
companions.  "  That,"  he  remarked  of  some  Ash- 
burton  sherry,  which  was  rather  strong  than  deli- 
cate, —  "  that  is  a  very  good  Faneuil-Hallish  drink ! " 
His  talk  on  books  was  always  delightful  and  discrimi- 
nating, with  an  occasional  eccentric  deviation  from 
the  general  judgment  on  an  author,  which  made  it 
all  the  more  fascinating.  The  world  of  books,  in- 
deed, was  that  "  real  world "  in  which  he  lived 
whenever  the  pauses  of  his  professional  engagements 
enabled  him  to  indulge  in  the  luxury ;  and  he  adroitly 
dodged  every  social  invitation  in  order  to  devote  to 
Bacon,  Shakspeare,  Milton,  and  Burke  —  his  favorite 
English  authors  —  the  hours  which  others  lose  in 
what  is  ironically  called  "  Society."  In  fact,  few 
persons  in  Boston  could  converse  with  him  unless 
they  met  him  in  his  daily  walk  around  the  Common, 
or  in  the  Athenaeum,  or  as  he  went  from  his  resi- 
dence to  the  Court  House.  Yet  no  Bostonian  seemed 
more  open  to  conversation,  and  certainly  no  one  ever 
left,  in  his  chance  meetings  with  acquaintances  of 
all  grades  and  pursuits,  such  an  impression  of  good- 
nature and  brilliancy.  Boston  swarms  to-day  with 
admirers  of  Choate  who  only  met  him  accidentally, 
as  I  did.  In  a  minute's  conversation  he  condensed 
what  could  have  been  obtained  from  no  other  celeb- 
rities of  the  city  in  an  hour's  discourse.  He  ap- 
peared, flashed  on  you  a  remark,  and  then  disappeared 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  27 

to  his  work.  Yet  more  persons  knew  him  and  talked 
about  liim  than  knew  or  talked  about  any  other 
eminent  Bostonian. 

Mr.  Choate  greedily  devoured  every  book  relating 
to  ancient  Greece,  even  the  most  ephemeral.  Of  one 
of  these  he  said :  "  The  author  seems  to  know  a  good 
deal,  but  he  is  too  confident  as  to  those  mysterious 
Pelasgians  at  the  bottom  of  the  whole  history ;  he 
JPelasgizes  too  much."  The  Englisli  historians  of 
Greece,  even  Thirlwall  and  Grote,  he  thought  were 
more  or  less  biassed  by  party  feelings.  In  writing 
about  ancient  Greece,  "  they  were  consciously  or  un- 
consciously influenced,"  he  said,  "  by  their  opinions 
as  to  the  personal  and  political  character  of  Charles 
James  Fox,"  As  to  his  own  method  of  learning  the 
history  of  Greece,  it  may  be  affirmed  that  he  studied 
the  works  of  the  Greek  orators,  philosophers,  and 
historians  in  order  to  become  mentally  a  citizen  of 
Greece,  and  thus  to  look  at  Greek  life  through  a 
Greek's  eyes.  By  his  realizing  imagination  he  in- 
stantly nullified  the  hard  conditions  of  Time;  sent 
his  mind  and  heart  back  two  thousand  or  twenty-five 
hundred  years  to  contemplate  a  civilization  entirely 
different  from  ours ;  and  often,  while  he  was  strid- 
ing around  Boston  Common  in  the  age  of  Buchanan, 
lie  was  really  making  himself  a  contemporary  of 
Pericles.  His  imagination  was  in  ancient  Athens, 
while  his  body  was  in  what  is  ironically  called 
"  the  modern  Athens."  As  he  pushed  rapidly  along 
in   his    favorite    afternoon   walk,   it  was   plain   that 


28  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

he  was  not  regarding  the  objects  before  his  bodily 
eyes,  but  those  before  his  mental  vision;  that  he 
was  attending,  perhaps,  the  performance  of  a  tragedy 
of  Sophocles  or  a  comedy  of  Aristophanes ;  or  was  in- 
dulging in  a  pleasant  game  of  chaffing  with  Socrates, 
in  some  Athenian  mechanic's  shop,  on  the  transcen- 
dental "  good  and  fair,"  as  contrasted  with  the  de- 
scendental  bad  and  mean ;  or  was  contesting  with 
Demosthenes  a  cause  before  the  "  fierce  democracy  " 
of  Athens ;  or  was  exhibiting,  in  a  visit  to  Aspasia, 
that  exquisite  courtesy  to  women  in  which  he  excelled 
all  other  gentlemen  of  his  time.  If  I  ever  crossed 
him  in  his  walks,  and  saw  the  weird  eyes  gazing  into 
distant  time  and  space,  I  made  it  a  point  of  honor 
not  to  interrupt  his  meditations,  but  to  pass  on  with 
a  simple  bow  of  recognition.  Why  should  I,  for  the 
sake  of  five  minutes'  delightful  conversation,  inter- 
rupt this  hard-worked  man  of  genius  in  his  glorious 
imaginative  communion  with  the  great  of  old  ?  The 
temptation  was  strong,  but  I  always  overcame  it. 
When  he  was  in  Boston,  I  ventured  to  accost  him ; 
when  he  was  in  Athens,  I  very  properly  considered 
that  he  was  in  much  better  company  than  any  which 
Boston  could  afford ;  and  as  an  humble  denizen  of 
the  place,  I  thought  it  judicious  not  to  obtrude  my- 
self into  a  select  circle  of  immortals  to  which  I  was 
not  invited. 

To  obtain  a  complete  idea  of  Mr.  Choate's  various 
talents  and  accomplisliments,  the  reader  is  referred 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  29 

to  the  edition  of  his  Works,  in  two  octavo  volumes, 
published  in  Boston  in  1862,  and  edited  by  Professor 
S.  G.  Brown,  who  also  contributed  a  long  and  excel- 
lent biography.  The  biography  includes  copious  ex- 
tracts from  Mr.  Choatc's  private  journals  and  familiar 
correspondence.  These  enable  us  to  penetrate  to  the 
inmost  heart  of  the  man,  and  prove  how  false  wxre 
many  of  the  rash  judgments  passed  upon  him  while 
he  lived.  It  also  contains  a  number  of  communica- 
tions from  his  legal  and  political  associates  and  oppo- 
nents, who,  whether  they  agreed  or  disagreed  with 
him,  preserved  a  vivid  impression  of  the  force  and 
fertility  of  his  mind,  and  the  manliness  and  kindli- 
ness of  his  nature.  But  its  great  merit  consists  in 
vindicating  Mr.  Choate  from  the  vulgar  imputations 
on  his  legal  and  political  integrity  ;  that  is,  on  his 
intellectual  conscientiousness.  It  shows  conclusively 
that  he  considered  the  exercise  of  his  powers  in  jury 
trials  as  an  "  office "  and  not  a  "  trade ; "  that  he 
was  convinced  that  his  part  in  the  determination  of 
a  cause  was  as  much  provided  for  in  the  law  of  the 
land  as  the  parts  assigned  to  the  judge,  to  the  oppos- 
ing counsel,  and  to  the  jury ;  and  that  as  an  "  offi- 
cial "  in  the  administration  of  justice,  it  would  be 
scandalous  for  him  to  spare  time,  labor,  knowledge, 
eloquence,  in  defence  of  his  particular  client.  That 
course  was  decreed  by  the  whole  theory  of  English 
and  American  law.  He  felt  the  obligation  imposed 
upon  him  so  keenly,  that  in  his  early  private  memo- 
randa, when   a   cause  was  decided   adversely  to  his 


30  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

view,  he  reproached  himself  for  not  having  done  more 
for  his  client ;  in  other  words,  for  not  having  fulfilled 
his  duties  as  an  official  in  the  administration  of  the  law 
with  more  address,  ability,  and  command  of  the  law. 
It  was  onlj  by  degrees  that  he  surmounted  this  seK- 
distrust,  and  became  able  to  dismiss  from  his  mind 
at  once  a  case  when  it  had  been  finally  settled. 

The  volumes  edited  by  Professor  Brown  contain 
also  Mr.  Choate's  most  valuable  literary  and  patriotic 
addresses,  and  his  best  speeches  while  he  was  a  Sena- 
tor of  the  United  States.  Whatever  may  be  the  criti- 
cisms on  his  political  career,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  he  never  had,  like  the  elder  brother  mentioned  in 
Scripture,  any  "  ulterior  views  on  the  fatted  calf." 
He  was  almost  forced  by  his  party  into  every  high 
political  position  he  occupied.  He  was  not  without 
political  ambition,  but  it  was  an  ambition  disconnected 
from  any  possibility  of  personal  emolument,  and  in- 
deed sadly  interfering  with  his  professional  business, 
and  with  his  natural  desire  to  provide  a  modest  com- 
petence for  his  family.  Everything  mean  and  base 
in  politics  he  absolutely  loathed.  To  him  "  machine 
politics"  were  equally  a  bore  and  a  blunder.  But 
when  great  national  interests  were  at  stake  he  was 
willing  to  sacrifice  what  few  hours  he  could  steal 
from  his  professional  engagements,  from  his  study 
of  the  poets,  historians,  and  philosophers  of  Greece 
and  Rom^,  from  his  delightful  communion  with  the 
spirits  of  Shakspeare,  Bacon,  Milton,  and  Burke,  to 
the  preparation  of  orations  designed  to  influence  the 


RUFUS  CIIOATE.  81 

legislative  or  popular  mind  at  periods  where  what  is 
called  a  "  crisis  "  threatens  the  interests  of  a  nation. 
The  editor  has  demonstrated  that  whether  Mr.  Choate 
was  right  or  wrong  in  the  varying  aspects  of  his  politi- 
cal creed,  he  was  pure  from  all  forms  of  avarice,  —  the 
insidious  avarice  of  fame,  no  less  than  the  more  open 
avarice  of  money  and  office.  In  short,  he  was  at  heart 
a  patriot,  even  when  the  course  he  took  disappointed 
many  of  his  best  friends  and  admirers. 

What  Professor  Brown  does  not  notice  —  probably 
as  beneath  the  dignity  of  biography  —  are  some  of 
the  peculiar  relations  of  Choate  with  Webster.  They 
were  strong  personal  and  political  friends.  When 
Webster  desired  to  raise  money,  he  sometimes  got 
Choate  to  indorse  his  note ;  when  Webster  ventured 
on  a  daring  political  move,  he  got  Choate  to  indorse 
his  policy,  —  and  the  result  was  that  in  either  case  the 
indorsement  entailed  on  Choate  pecuniary  embarrass- 
ment or  popular  obloquy.  If  one  should  consult  the 
archives  of  the  Boston  Merchants'  Bank,  there  would 
doubtless  appear  sufficient  reasons  why  Choate  should 
himself  have  been  occasionally  troubled  with  a  want 
of  money,  on  account  of  heedlessly  affixing  the  hiero- 
glyphic which  passed  for  his  name  on  the  back  of  a 
"  promise  to  pay  "  which  bore  the  more  flowing  and 
familiar  signature  of  Daniel  Webster  ;  and  whenever 
his  immense  popularity  as  an  orator  was  at  all  abated, 
it  was  generally  found  that  what  he  lost  in  popular 
estimation  was  due  to  his  honest  and  cordial  indorse- 
ment of  his  friend's  political  conduct. 


82  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OP 

The  only  occasion  on  which  Choate  was  ever 
charged  with  showing  the  white  feather  was  in  his 
contest  with  Clay  during  the  early  days  of  Tyler's 
Administration.  Clay  was  the  champion  of  a  bill  for 
the  establishment  of  a  United  States  Bank,  The  bill 
was  sure  to  pass  both  Houses  of  Congress.  Choate 
had  probably  been  informed  by  Webster  that  the 
President  would  veto  it  unless  certain  clauses  were 
omitted,  and  he  eagerly  urged  that  such  omissions  be 
made,  in  order  to  insure  its  becoming  a  law.  Clay  in- 
stantly detected  that  some  communication  had  passed 
from  the  Secretary  of  State  to  the  Senator  of  Massa- 
chusetts, and  pitilessly  forced  Choate  into  a  corner, 
whence  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  escape.  "  Why 
are  you  so  confident  that  the  bill  will  be  vetoed  ? 
What  right  have  you  to  suggest  to  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States,  a  co-ordinate  branch  of  the  govern- 
ment, that  the  Executive  is  opposed  to  a  bill,  before 
it  has  been  presented  to  him  for  his  signature  ? 
What  are  your  private  means  of  information  ?  Tell 
us  the  name  of  the  man  from  whom  you  received 
such  information."  What  could  be  done  by  dex- 
terity in  evading  the  real  point  in  issue  Choate  did 
marvellously  well ;  but  his  friend  Webster  had  got 
him  into  a  "  fix,"  from  which  neither  courage  nor  in- 
genuity could  get  liim  out.  Clay  Avas  insolent  and 
overbearing,  for  he  was  attacked  by  one  of  his  peri- 
odical fits  of  hatred  against  his  great  rival  for  the 
prize  of  the  Presidency,  who  was  then  Secretary  of 
State,  and  he  lavished  on  Choate  the  wrath  he  in- 


KUFUS  CHOATE.  88 

tended  to  fall  on  Webster.  It  was  sounded  all  over 
the  country  that  Choate  had  quailed  before  Clay. 
Even  in  the  State  he  represented,  Choate  was  long 
considered  to  have  lacked  in  this  instance  that  in- 
trepidity which  he  had  never  before  failed  to  show 
in  any  contest  at  the  Bar  or  in  the  Senate.  The 
truth  is  that  Clay  on  the  next  meeting  of  the  Senate 
magnanimously  apologized  for  the  rudeness  of  his 
assault,  and  shook  hands  with  Choate  with  all  the 
cordiality  that  can  be  expected  from  a  statesman 
who  is  immeasurably  ambitious.  So  far  as  Choate 
was  wrong  in  this  conflict  it  was  owing  to  his  friend- 
ship for  Webster ;  and  that  there  was  not  a  taint  of 
cowardice  in  his  nature  was  soon  after  shown  in  his 
contest  with  the  great  fire-eater  of  the  South,  the  re- 
doubtable Senator  M'Duffie,  of  South  Carolina.  His 
reply  to  M'Duffie's  violent  and  insolent  assault  on  his 
tariff  speech  is  a  masterpiece  of  argument,  edged 
with  every  appliance  of  scorn,  sarcasm,  and  invective 
which  his  wit  and  fancy  could  command.  There  was 
no  question  as  to  his  courage  in  that  encounter. 
M'Duffie  was  a  duellist  debater,  whose  body  was  rid- 
dled with  bullets  received  in  many  a  quarrel  which 
his  effrontery  had  provoked ;  but  he  submitted  to 
Choate's  "  punishment "  without  a  thought  of  sending 
him  a  challenge.  It  is  doubtful  if  his  contentious  and 
belligerent  temper  ever  before  quietly  endured  such  a 
series  of  polished  insults  as  Choate  heaped  upon  him. 

Still  it  must  be  admitted  that  Choate,  in  his  politi- 
cal connection  with  Webster,  seemed  to  submit  to  the 

3 


34  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

control  of  a  master-mind.  No  two  men  could  be  more 
widely  contrasted  in  their  characters,  in  their  mental 
processes,  in  their  style  of  expression.  They  were 
often  brought  into  conflict  in  the  trial  of  causes ;  at 
times  it  appeared  as  if  they  were  mortal  enemies,  so 
strenuous  was  each  in  supporting  his  particular  side  ; 
and  as  an  advocate  Choate  grappled  with  Webster  — 
mind  with  mind,  and  man  with  man — with  an  intrepid 
pertinacity  which  left  no  doubt  on  the  court  and  jury 
that  his  respect  for  him  did  not  control  the  vehement 
logic  and  still  more  vehement  rhetoric  with  which  he 
urged,  against  Webster's  arguments  and  eloquence, 
the  strong  points  of  the  case  he  was  employed  to  state 
and  defend.  On  one  occasion,  while  Webster  sat 
gravely  listening  to  the  impassioned  eloquence  of  his 
opponent,  he  turned  to  one  of  the  junior  counsel  and 
remarked :  "  Some  of  our  technical  brethren  of  the 
Bar  would  call  all  that  flimsy  humbug ;  if  it  be  so, 
which  I  deny,  it  is  still  humbug  which  stirs  men's 
souls  to  their  inmost  depths.  It  is  reason  impelled 
by  passion,  sustained  by  legal  learning,  and  adorned 
by  fancy."  There  were  few  advocates  that  Webster 
feared  more  than  Ghoate,  when  there  was  a  trial  of 
strength  between  them.  On  such  occasions  it  was  ob- 
served that  he  studiously  refrained  from  any  attempt 
to  rival  his  opponent  in  eloquence.  He  adopted  a  dry, 
hard,  sensible  tone  of  statement  and  argument.  He 
ironically  complimented  the  learned  counsel  opposed 
to  him  for  his  impassioned  flights  of  eloquence,  which 
as  poetry  he  had  himself  enjoyed  as  much  as  he  sup- 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  36 

posed  tlio  twelve  honest  and  practical  men  who  were 
to  decide  on  the  case  had  doubtless  enjoyed  them. 
Nothing  could  be  better,  if  questions  of  fact  and  law 
were  to  be  influenced  by  beautiful  displays  of  wit  and 
imagination,  than  his  learned  brother's  argument. 
"But,  gentlemen,"  — and  here  Webster  assumed  all  the 
weight  and  consequence  which  his  imposing  form  and 
penetrating  voice  naturally  gave  him,  — "  this  is  a 
question  not  of  poetry,  but  of  fact.  It  is  purely  a  mat- 
ter of  commonplace,  every-day  occurrence.  There  are 
no  heroes  and  no  heroines  in  it,  no  tragedy  and  no  com- 
edy, but  plain  people  like  you  and  me  —  mere  Smiths 
and  Robinsons;  and  you  are  called  upon  to  decide 
between  them,  as  you  would  decide  a  dispute  between 
your  own  friends  and  neighbors."  He  would  then  pro- 
ceed to  reduce  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case  to  the 
low  level  of  actual  life,  pitilessly  ridicule  Choatc's  high- 
wrought  rhetoric,  and  exhibit  the  bare  skeleton  facts, 
stripped  of  all  their  coverings,  in  connection  with  the 
law  that  applied  to  them,  confident  that  there  were 
twelve  solid  and  sensible  "Websters  in  the  jury-box  who 
would  sustain  him  in  his  judgment  of  the  case.  He 
sometimes  succeeded,  sometimes  failed,  in  this  pro- 
cess of  disenchantment ;  but  at  any  rate  he  rarely  in 
his  legal  contests  with  Choate  availed  himself  of  his 
latent  power  of  overwhelming  declamation,  in  which 
his  logic  was  made  thoroughly  red-hot  with  passion,  and, 
so  to  speak,  burned  its  way  into  the  minds  of  the  jury. 
Thus  in  the  famous  "  Smith-will "  case,  in  Northamp- 
ton, Choate  was  opposed  to  Webster,  and  made  one  of 


86  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OE 

the  most  learned,  ingenious,  powerful,  and  impassioned 
arguments  ever  addressed  to  a  Massachusetts  court. 
Webster  replied  by  a  simple  statement  of  tlie  case, 
and  studiously  avoided  any  rivalry  with  Choate  in 
respect  to  eloquence.  Webster  obtained  the  verdict, 
not  so  much  by  the  force  of  his  argument  as  by  the 
singular  felicity  with  which  he  conducted  the  exami- 
nation of  the  principal  witness  in  the  case,  who  was 
afflicted  with  a  nervous  timidity  which  in  a  jury  trial 
might  have  been  converted  into  an  indication  of  in- 
sanity, had  not  Webster  extended  to  him  his  powerful 
protection,  and  prevented  the  other  side  from  cross- 
examining  him  into  delirium.  As  the  case  really 
depended  on  the  sanity  of  this  witness,  Choate's 
magnificent  argument  proved  of  no  avail.  It  is  a 
pity,  however,  that  his  subtile  analysis  of  morbid 
states  of  mind  which  are  ever  on  the  point  of  top- 
pling over  into  insanity  has  not  been  preserved. 

But  while  as  an  advocate  Choate  boldly  confronted 
Webster  in  the  trial  of  causes,  and  at  the  Bar  was  ever 
ready  to  put  his  individuality  as  well  as  his  intellect 
and  legal  learning  into  opposition  to  Webster's,  he 
showed,  as  has  been  previously  stated,  an  unmistaka- 
ble sense  of  inferiority  to  him  in  statesmanship,  and 
in  questions  of  public  policy  almost  always  followed 
his  lead.  He  did  it  in  his  own  peculiar  way,  but  every- 
body more  or  less  felt  that  he  was  a  follower  and  not 
a  leader  in  matters  of  the  higher  politics  of  the  coun- 
try. There  were  several  occasions  —  notably  that  after 
Webster  had  made  his  speech  of  the  7th  of  March, 


RUrUS  CHOATE.  87 

1850  —  when  Choate  might  easily  have  assumed  the 
leadership  in  Massachusetts  of  the  party  whicli  ten 
years  later  obtained  the  control  of  the  whole  political 
administration  of  the  country ;  but  he  preferred, 
against  all  temptations  that  could  be  presented  to 
his  ambition,  to  stand  by  the  man  whom  he  had  de- 
liberately elected  as  his  chief.  Tliere  was  no  servility 
in  this  choice  ;  it  was  rather  owing  to  an  inward  feel- 
ing that  in  political  experience  and  sagacity  he  was 
no  match  for  the  great  lawyer  he  had  fearlessly  enough 
encountered  at  the  Bar. 

Perhaps  the  weight  and  power  of  Webster's  char- 
acter were  due  as  much  to  the  hours  he  spent  in 
the  woods  and  fields  and  on  the  ocean,  chatting  with 
farmers  or  sailors  as  he  was  engaged  in  hunting  or 
fishing,  as  to  the  hours  he  spent  in  his  study.  He 
was  essentially  an  out-of-doors  man,  devoting  a  full 
third  of  the  year  to  the  pursuits  or  sports  of  a  coun- 
try gentleman ;  often,  indeed,  following  out  the  trains 
of  a  logical  argument  while  he  was  tramping  along 
through  muddy  forests  rifle  in  hand,  eager  for  an 
opportunity  to  get  a  good  shot  at  game,  or  framing 
sonorous  periods  as  his  boat  swayed  up  and  down  on 
the  waves  of  the  Atlantic,  while  he  was  eagerly  watch- 
ing an  opportunity  to  liook  a  large  cod  or  a  giant 
halibut.  It  is  reported  that  the  celebrated  passage, 
which  every  school-boy  in  the  land  knows  by  heart, 
"  Venerable  men !  you  have  come  down  to  us  from  a 
former  generation,"  was  both  conceived  and  audibly 
uttered  as  he  was  exultingly  hauling  in  a  huge  fish ; 


88  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

and  the  dying  cod  or  halibut,  however  sad  might  be 
his  condition  in  respect  to  a  more  important  matter, 
than  listening  to  eloquence,  had  at  least  the  advan-* 
tage  of  being  the  first  living  thing  that  heard  that 
immortal  apostrophe  to  the  survivors  of  the  Revo- 
lutionary war.  Now,  such  communion  with  Nature, 
both  passive  and  active,  gave  to  Webster's  logic 
and  eloquence  an  objective  character.  The  breath 
of  the  pine-woods  of  New  England,  the  exhilarating 
ocean  breeze,  in  some  mysterious  way  stole  into  his 
profoundest  arguments  addressed  to  the  Senate  or 
the  Supreme  Court,  while  his  intimate  knowledge  of 
ordinary  men  in  their  ordinary  occupations  recom- 
mended what  he  said  as  conformable  to  the  plain 
good  sense  of  average  mankind.  "  He  is  one  of  our 
folks,"  was  the  general  judgment  pronounced  at 
thousands  of  New  England  village  firesides  when  one 
of  his  great  speeches  in  the  Senate  was  read  aloud 
to  the  assembled  family ;  and  they  thoughtfully  pon- 
dered on  it  the  next  day,  when  they  were  urging  re- 
luctant oxen  through  miry  roads,  or  were  ploughing 
their  fields. 

Now  Choate,  superior  to  Webster  in  quickness  of 
apprehension  and  imagination,  was  an  in-doors  man. 
The  larger  portion  of  his  mature  life  was  passed  in 
the  stifling  atmosphere  of  the  courts,  or  in  what 
Milton  calls  "the  still  air  of  delightful  studies,"  — 
that  is,  in  his  library.  He  of  course  was  not  so  foolish 
as  to  neglect  exercise  ;  but  his  exercise  was  com- 
monly confined  to  long  walks  through  the  streets  or 


RUrUS  CHOATE.  39 

around  the  Common  of  Boston.  No  one  ever  enjoyed 
Nature  more  intensely  ;  but  he  never  sojourned  with 
her.  His  friend  Charles  G.  Loring,  one  of  his  com- 
petitors for  the  leadership  of  the  Suffolk  Bar,  once 
invited  him  to  pass  a  summer  day  at  his  beautiful 
residence  on  the  Beverly  shore.  Mr.  Choate  was  full 
of  enthusiasm  as  he  walked  among  the  woodland 
paths,  or  gazed  at  the  varying  aspects  of  sky  and 
ocean ;  he  doubtless  stored  up  in  his  mind  images  of 
natural  beauty  which  flashed  out  afterward  in  many  a 
popular  speech  or  legal  argument.  But  in  half-a-dozen 
hours  he  exhausted  the  capacity  of  the  place  to  feed 
his  eye  and  imagination.  "  My  dear  Loring,"  he  said, 
in  parting,  "there  has  not  been  a  twentieth  part 
of  a  minute  since  I  entered  this  terrestrial  paradise 
that  I  have  not  enjoyed  to  the  top  of  my  bent ;  but 
let  me  tell  you  that  should  you  confine  me  here  for 
a  week,  apart  from  my  work  and  books,  I  know  that 
I  should  die  from  utter  ennui.  You  are  fortunate  in 
being  able  serenely  to  delight  in  it  day  after  day." 
Now,  this  did  not  indicate  any  incapacity  in  Mr. 
Choate  to  take  into  his  mind  all  that  ocean  and 
woodland  scenery  suggests,  but  simply  his  incapacity 
to  dwell  long  upon  what  other  less  active  and  rest- 
less minds  find  to  be  a  perpetual  source  of  tranquil 
delight.  In  the  fourth  canto  of  "  Childe  Harold " 
Byron  describes  in  immortal  verse  the  architecture, 
the  statues,  the  paintings,  which  make  Rome  a  holy 
city  to  the  artist  and  the  poet.  The  stanzas  devoted 
to  St.  Peter's  Church,  the  Apollo  Belvedere,  the  Yenus 


40  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

de  Medici,  the  Dying  Gladiator,  not  to  mention  others, 
are  in  the  memories  of  all  who  visit  Rome  ;  still,  it  is 
not  remembered  that  Byron  stayed  in  Rome  only  a  few- 
days,  though  in  that  brief  period  he  did  more  than  an 
ordinary  man  of  talent  could  have  done  by  residing 
there  for  years.  Choate,  in  the  same  swift  way,  rap- 
idly assimilated  what  he  saw  in  a  novel  scene,  and 
with  a  similar  restlessness  of  brain  hurried  away  to 
some  new  experience.  He  honored  Webster  as  much 
as  he  could  honor  any  man  of  his  time  ;  still,  if  he 
had  been  asked  to  pass  a  fortnight  with  Webster  at 
Marshfield  or  at  his  New  Hampshire  farm,  and  had 
accompanied  him  day  after  day  in  his  shooting  or  fish- 
ing expeditions,  not  even  Webster's  conversation  could 
have  saved  him  from  being  devoured  with  an  impa- 
tient desire  to  escape  from  the  monotony  of  such  an 
existence.  All  the  eccentric  originals  of  the  neigh- 
borhood, whom  Webster  delighted  in  year  after  year, 
Choate  would  have  delighted  in  for  a  day,  and  then 
dismissed  them  from  his  mind  as  intolerable  bores ; 
the  mountain  or  ocean  scenery  might  have  enthralled 
him  for  a  few  days  more  ;  but  the  shooting  and  fish- 
ing, in  which  Webster  took  such  pleasure,  would 
have  seemed  to  Choate  a  scandalous  waste  of  time, 
which  might  have  been  more  profitably  bestowed  on 
^schylus  and  Aristophanes,  on  Thucydides  and 
Tacitus,  on  Hooker  and  Jeremy  Taylor,  on  Bacon  and 
Burke,  on  Shakspeare  and  Milton.  By  the  necessity 
of  his  mental  constitution  he  could  find  no  repose 
except  in  varying  the   direction   of  his   intellectual 


EUrUS  OHOATE.  41 

activity.  The  serenity  of  mind  which  comes  from 
the  calm  contemplation  or  indolent  enjoyment  of 
Nature  and  country  life  he  never  obtained,  while  to 
Webster  it  was  an  habitual  mood.  Webster  had  lead- 
ing and  fixed  ideas,  which  were  inseparable  from  his 
individuality ;  through  the  mind  of  Choate  a  throng 
of  ideas  was  constantly  passing,  pressing,  and  some- 
times trampling  on  each  other,  but  on  account  of 
their  number  and  variety  disturbing  the  process  by 
which  ideas  settle  into  convictions  and  dominate  will. 
It  is  hardly  fanciful  to  assert  that  the  permanent  im- 
pression which  Webster's  ideas  and  rhetoric  left  on 
the  politics  and  literature  of  the  country  was,  in  a 
considerable  measure,  due  to  his  out-of-doors  life  and 
his  talks  with  "  uncultivated  "  natural  men. 

In  one  particular  Choate  excelled  Webster,  —  that 
of  constant,  high-bred  courtesy  to  men  and  women  of 
all  ranks.  While  pouring  forth  the  treasures  of  his 
mind,  he  always  had  the  art  of  disguising  his  own 
superiority  by  graceful  subterfuges  of  expression,  in- 
dicating that  he  was  only  recalling  to  the  attention 
of  his  companion  things,  events,  and  thoughts  which 
were  in  the  memory  of  both.  "  You  remember  that 
fine  passage  in  Southey;"  "I  need  not  remind  you 
that  Burke,  on  this  point,  says;"  "You,  of  course, 
recollect  Cicero's  statement  as  to  the  problem  in 
question  ;  "  "  You  have  doubtless  often  felt  the  force 
of  De  Quincey's  remark ; "  "  You  need  not  be  re- 
minded of  that  grand  sentence  in  Hooker,"  —  such 
were  his  ordinary  ways  of  introducing  allusions  to 


42  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

authors  of  note,  whose  works  were  lodged  as  se- 
curely in  his  brain  as  they  were  on  the  shelves  of 
his  library;  and  he  always  gave  you  new  informa- 
tion by  thus  amiably  intimating  that  you  were  al- 
ready in  possession  of  it.  In  familiar  conversation 
he  never  put  on  the  airs  of  a  "  superior  intelligence ;  '* 
he  had  a  comic  dislike  of  the  grave,  portentous, 
superserviceable  bore  who  approached  him  with  the 
notion  that  he  was  "the  great  Mr.  Choate,"  and 
never  appeared  more  happy  than  when  his  compan- 
ions of  a  lower  intellectual  grade  thought  they  were 
communicating  knowledge  to  him,  though  they  were 
in  fact  receiving  it.  Such  entire  absence  of  dogma- 
tism and  pretension,  such  tenderness  for  the  feelings 
and  respect  for  the  opinions  of  others,  I  never  wit- 
nessed in  any  other  man  of  equal  talents  and  accom- 
plishments. Webster  was  generally  charming  when 
among  his  intimate  friends,  and  ponderously  conde- 
scending to  comparative  strangers,  if  he  happened 
to  be  in  good  health  and  spirits ;  but  in  case  he  was 
sick  or  "  disgruntled,"  or  had  his  autumnal  "  hay 
fever,"  he  put  on  a  boorish  "  God-Almightiness," 
which  had  all  the  offensiveness  of  dignity  without 
any  of  its  majesty,  and  made  him  personally  hate- 
ful to  many  politicians  who  were  willing  to  admit 
the  essential  grandeur  of  his  genius  and  character. 
Choate,  on  the  other  hand,  whether  in  health  or  out 
of  it,  was  always  courteous ;  and  I  do  not  believe 
that  any  man  ever  met  him  in  the  street,  in  his 
house,  or  in   his  office,  without  being  impressed  by 


RUrUS  CHOATE.  48 

the  sweetness  and  serenity  of  his  temper,  and  by 
that  graciousness  of  manner  which  was  the  farthest 
possible  remove  from  the  insolent  affability  character- 
istic of  the  eminent  "  personage "  who  condescends 
to  treat  with  elaborate  politeness  the  humbler  crea- 
ture whom  he  admits,  for  the  moment,  to  be  a  human 
being.  Nothing  could  abate  Choate's  chivalric  cour- 
tesy, not  even  his  horror  of  bores.  On  one  occasion 
I  was  present  when  a  good  man  propounded  to  him 
a  self-evident  proposition,  and,  to  support  it,  pro- 
ceeded to  state  a  considerable  number  of  irrelevant 
facts,  on  which  he  founded  a  series  of  inconclusive 
arguments.  The  thermometer  was  90°  in  the  shade ; 
Choate  was  physically  exhausted  by  the  labors  of  the 
forenoon,  and  required  some  more  stimulating  dis- 
course to  rouse  him  into  attention ;  but  he  listened 
patiently  to  the  end,  and  bowed  his  acquiescence  to 
the  foregone  conclusion  arrived  at  by  an  illogical 
process.  When  the  bore  departed,  thankful  that  he 
had  deposited  an  important  truth  which  would  bear 
fruit  in  his  listener's  mind,  Mr.  Choate  turned  to 
me,  and  remarked :  "  What  an  excellent  person  A. 
Y.  Z.  is !  but  don't  you  think  he  would  be  much 
better  than  he  is  if  he  could  tell  in  a  quarter  of  half 
a  minute  what  he  has  consumed  fifteen  minutes  in 
telling  ? "  That  remark  was  the  only  revenge  he 
took  for  being  robbed  of  his  precious  time.  Webster 
would  have  growled  the  talker  into  silence  at  the  end 
of  his  first  sentence,  or  have  contemptuously  turned  on 
his  heel  and  left  him  to  talk  to  himself.     Choate  was 


44  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OP 

incapable  of  offending  the  self-love  of  a  benevolent  ego- 
tist by  any  disrespect,  even  the  disrespect  of  inattention 
to  his  tedious  discourse.  It  is  difficult  to  determine 
how  many  influential  enemies  Webster  made  by  his 
surliness,  especially  when  he  had  one  of  his  attacks 
of  the  "  hay  fever."  I  remember  one  occasion  when 
he  came  down  from  Boston  to  deliver  a  lecture  on 

the  framers  of  the  Constitution  to  a  city  in 

County,  the  leading  personages  of  which  were  dis- 
posed to  think  of  themselves  as  among  the  elect  —  the 
Slite,  perhaps  the  effete  —  of  the  earth.  In  the  ante- 
room of  the  hall  the  mayor  was  busy  in  introducing 
the  distinguished  citizens  of  the  place  to  the  great 
man,  who  had  an  ominous  thunder-cloud  on  his  brow, 
and  who  shook  hands  with  each  prominent  citizen 
as  he  came  forward  with  a  savage  expression  in  his 
countenance,  indicating  that  he  would  rather  use 
his  hands  to  inflict  mortal  injury  on  each  of  these 
persons  than  to  clasp  theirs  in  a  spirit  of  amity 
and  brotherhood.  The  cloud  on  his  brow  grew 
blacker  and  blacker,  and  the  bolt  flashed  out  just  as 
a  political  opponent,  of  the  reptile  race  of  local  poli- 
ticians, came  cringing  and  smiling  toward  him  to 
say,  "  I  am  glad  to  see  you,  Mr.  Webster."  Webster 
contemptuously  turned  on  his  heel,  and  with  his 
back  to  the  purring,  crawling,  poisonous  sycophant, 
gruffly  exclaimed,  "  Enough  of  this,  Mr.  Mayor !  let 
us  go  into  the  hall."  Those  who  witnessed  the 
rebuff  can  never  forget  the  instant  change  in  the 
face  of  the  man  who  was  thus  disappointed  in  hav- 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  46 

ing  the  honor  to  shake  hands  with  the  "  Defender 
of  the  Constitution,"  the  "  godlike  Dan."  Mortifica- 
tion and  rage  were  blended  in  the  tones  with  which 
he  whispered  to  another  political  opponent  of  Mr. 
Webster  by  his  side :  "  Damn  him !  I  always  said, 
you  know,  that  he  was  an  enemy  to  his  country ! " 
Choate  could  never,  under  any  circumstances,  have 
been  provoked  into  such  an  incivility.  It  may  be 
added  that  Webster  further  expressed  his  sense  of 
intolerable  boredom  by  saying  to  the  gentleman  who 
was  to  follow  his  speech  with  the  recitation  of  an 
original  poem,  "  Are  you  familiar  with  this  city  ? 
In  my  opinion  't  is  the  dullest  place  on  God's  earth." 
It  is  plain  that  this  is  not  the  way  by  which  a  promi- 
nent statesman  can  acquire  friends  or  conciliate  ene- 
mies. Webster  himself  could  never  have  been  guilty 
of  such  manners  to  a  farmer,  or  fisherman,  or  body- 
servant;  but  in  his  ugly  moods  he  was  capable  of 
heaping  any  insult  on  a  politician. 

Mr.  Choate,  as  the  great  Whig  orator  of  Boston, 
was  always  called  upon  to  address  the  monster  meet- 
ings of  the  Boston  Whigs  when  an  important  election 
was  pending.  Unless  inflamed  with  the  passion  of 
the  time,  unless  the  question  up  for  settlement  was 
one  which  spontaneously  inspired  him,  he  considered 
this  demand  on  the  little  leisure  which  his  profes- 
sional engagements  allowed  him  an  intolerable  bore. 
On  one  occasion,  when  he  was  suiffering  from  one 
of  his  attacks  of  bilious  headache,  he  was  almost 
dragged  out  of  his  bed  and  practically  forced  to  go 


46  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

down  to  Faneuil  Hall  and  make  a  speech.  I  was 
among  the  crowd,  and  noticed,  as  he  pressed  through 
the  seething,  sweltering  mass  of  citizens  which  ob- 
structed his  way  to  his  allotted  position  on  the  plat- 
form, that  his  face  looked  weary  and  haggard,  and 
that  a  strong  odor  of  camphor  followed  him  in  his 
progress ;  but  I  also  noticed,  as  he  passed,  that  there 
was  a  humorously  wicked  look  in  his  eyes,  which 
indicated  that  he  intended  mischief  to  the  chairman 
of  the  meeting,  who  had  invaded  the  privacy  of  his 
chamber  and  insisted  on  his  making  a  speech  though 
he  was  palpably  suffering  from  physical  pain.  My 
anticipation  proved  true.  Nothing  could  be  more 
splendid  and  inspiring  than  the  oration  as  a  whole  ; 
but  he  took  every  opportunity,  in  the  pauses  of  his 
declamatory  argument,  to  give  a  sly  thrust  at  the 
chairman.  The  first  sentence  apprised  all  who  were 
familiar  with  Choate's  moods  that  mischief  was 
brewing.  "  You,  Mr.  Chairman,"  he  began,  "  called 
upon  me  last  Thursday,  and  demanded  that  I  should 
address  the  Whigs  of  Boston  to-night.  I  respect- 
fully informed  you  that,  owing  to  ill-health  and  the 
pressure  of  my  professional  engagements,  it  was 
utterly  impossible  for  me  to  be  present  on  this  occa- 
sion, and  accordingly  here  I  amP  This  delicious  non 
sequitur  elicited  roars  of  laughter  and  applause  from 
three  or  four  thousand  people,  and  prepared  them 
for  what  was  to  follow.  Choate  was  determined  to 
punish  the  chairman  —  one  of  the  ablest  men  of 
business  that  Boston  ever  produced,  but  who  knew 


RUFU3  GEO  ATE.  47 

as  little  of  Latin  as  of  Cherokee — for  forcing  him 
into  his  irksome  position.  With  this  end  in  view, 
he  took  a  malicious  delight  in  hurling  every  now 
and  then  at  the  chairman  long  resounding  sentences 
from  Cicero,  always  prefacing  them  with  an  inimi- 
table mock  deference  to  the  good  merchant  in  the 
chair,  as  though,  in  familiarity  with  Latin  learning, 
the  able  business  man  was  infinitely  superior  to  such 
a  poor  scholar  as  himself.  The  chairman  had  to 
smile  blandly  and  nod  his  head  in  approval  as  every 
quotation  from  Cicero  was  shot  at  him  in  the  most 
penetrating  tones  of  the  orator's  magnetic  voice. 
The  mass  of  the  audience  did  not  at  first  take  the 
joke.  Indeed,  the  most  ignorant  people  like  to  hear 
Latin,  as  the  father  of  Charles,  in  Fletcher's  play  of 
"  The  Elder  Brother,"  liked  to  hear  Greek,  for,  he  said, 
"  It  comes  so  thundering  as  't  would  waken  devils." 
The  mere  noise  of  the  unintelligible  language  has 
an  effect  on  the  ear,  though  it  conveys  no  sense  to 
the  mind ;  and  Choate's  citations  from  Cicero  passed 
muster  for  about  fifteen  minutes  before  his  pushing, 
swaying,  clamorous,  and  delighted  mob  of  auditors 
became  aware  of  the  exquisite  pleasantry  of  prefac- 
ing every  rolling,  resounding  Latin  sentence  with 
such  remarks  as  these :  "  As  you,  Mr.  Chairman, 
will  remember ; "  "  As  you,  Mr.  Chairman,  cannot 
forget ; "  "  As  you,  Mr.  Chairman,  must  have  often 
recalled  to  your  memory  in  the  present  strife  of 
irreconcilable  factions  in  this  terrible  crisis  of  our 
countrv ; "  but  at  last  the  full  malicious  fun  of  the 


48  SOKE  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

orator  they  "were  applauding  became  evident  to  their 
sense  of  humor.  They  knew  that  the  chairman  was 
as  ignorant  of  the  language  of  Cicero  as  they  were, 
and  they  delighted  in  seeing  him  helplessly  bending 
under  the  pitiless  peltings  of  this  linguistic  storm. 
The  shouts  and  acclamations  with  which  they  wel- 
comed every  point  which  Mr.  Choate  made  in  the 
English  tongue  were  redoubled  on  every  occasion 
when  he  solemnly  turned  to  the  chairman  and  capped 
his  climax  in  magnificent  Ciceronian  Latin.  The  fun 
waxed  more  and  more  fast  and  furious ;  and  when 
Mr.  Choate,  utterly  exhausted,  sat  down,  it  seemed 
as  if  Faneuil  Hall  would  rock  to  its  foundations 
with  the  clappings  of  hands  and  the  stampings  of 
feet.  The  orator  who  had  raised  all  this  uproarious 
hubbub,  declining  all  compliments,  proceeded  quietly 
to  do  what  he  always  did  after  making  a  great  effort, 
—  that  is,  to  invest  his  throat  and  lungs  with  volumi- 
nous wrappings,  in  order  to  protect  them  against  the 
night  air,  —  and  then  stalked  out  at  a  rapid  pace  to 
the  peaceful  chamber  from  which  he  had  been  un- 
warrantably drawn  to  serve  a  transient  purpose  of 
his  party.  The  chairman  of  the  meeting  doubtless 
never  afterward  compelled  Mr.  Choate  to  make  a 
speech  against  his  will,  unless  he  had  previously 
devoted  days  and  nights  to  the  study  of  Cicero  in 
Cicero's  native  tongue. 

Perhaps  the  most  notable  of  Mr.  Choate's  popular 
addresses  was  one  delivered  before  the  Democrats  of 
Lowell,  Massachusetts,  in  the  summer  of  1856,  after 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  49 

he  had  concluded  to  come  out  for  Mr.  Buchanan,  the 
Democratic  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  There  were 
four  or  five  thousand  persons  present  eager  to  applaud 
the  great  Whig  orator,  who  had  been  constrained  to 
accept  their  candidate  because  he  thought  the  Demo- 
cratic party  then  stood,  more  emphatically  than  the 
party  he  left,  for  "  the  Union."  The  floor  of  the  im- 
mense hall  began  to  sink  before  the  orator  began  to 
speak.  It  sank  more  and  more  as  he  proceeded  in  his 
discourse,  and  at  the  end  of  half  an  hour  a  sound  was 
heard  calculated  to  frighten  the  audience  into  a  stam- 
pede for  the  doors,  — •  a  course  which  would  have  re- 
sulted in  their  destruction.  Mr.  B.  F.  Butler,  who 
presided,  told  the  audience  to  remain  perfectly  quiet 
while  he  went  to  discover  if  there  were  any  cause  for 
alarm.  He  found  that  the  condition  of  the  supports 
of  the  floor  was  such  that  the  sliglitest  demonstra- 
tion of  applause  would  be  likely  to  bring  the  floor, 
the  roof,  and  the  walls  of  the  building  itself  to  the 
ground,  and  bury  the  audience  in  the  ruins.  He 
calmly  returned  to  the  platform,  and  as  he  passed 
Choate  he  whispered  hoarsely  in  his  ear,  "  We  shall  all 

be   in in  five   minutes."     Then,  with   admirable 

aplomb^  he  told  the  crowd  before  him  that  there  was 
no  immediate  danger  if  they  slowly  dispersed,  but  he 
considered  it  judicious  to  adjourn  the  meeting  to 
another  locality  to  hear  the  conclusion  of  Mr.  Choate's 
speech.  The  post  of  danger,  he  added,  was  just  un- 
der the  platform,  and  that  he  and  those  with  him  on 
the  platform  would  be  the  last  to  go  out.     As  Choate 

4 


60  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

slowly  walked  by  the  side  of  Butler  in  the  rear  of  the 
procession,  thinking  every  moment  that  a  dreadful 
catastrophe  might  occur,  he  still  could  not  resist  the 
temptation  to  indulge  in  a  bit  of  humorous  mischief 
at  the  expense  of  the  politician  and  lawyer  he  had 
fought  for  so  many  years,  and  whispered  to  him : 
"  Brother  Butler,  when  you  told  me  we  should  all  be 
in  five  minutes  in  that  locality  unmentionable  to  ears 
polite,  did  you  have  the  slightest  idea  of  insinuating 
that  both  of  us  would  go  to  the  same  place  ? "  It  may, 
however,  be  added  that  Mr.  Butler  probably  saved,  by 
his  admirable  coolness  in  that  hour  of  peril,  as  many 
men  as  he  was  afterward  the  instrument  of  killing  in 
his  office  of  Major-General. 

Many  illustrations  might  be  cited  of  Mr.  Choate's 
insidious  power  over  a  jury,  secret  even  to  the  twelve 
who  were  to  render  the  verdict.  One  of  these  was 
furnished  by  a  hard-headed,  strong-hearted,  well- 
educated  farmer,  who  was  one  of  a  jury  that  gave 
five  verdicts  in  succession  for  Choate's  clients.  The 
way  he  expressed  his  admiration  of  the  great  advocate 
was  peculiar.  It  was  in  these  words  :  "  I  understand, 
sir,  that  you  are  a  relative  of  Mr.  Choate.  I  must  tell 
you  that  I  did  not  think  much  of  his  flights  of  fancy ; 
but  I  considered  him  a  very  lucky  lawyer,  for  there 
was  not  one  of  those  five  cases  that  came  before  us 
where  he  wasn't  on  the  right  side."  This  was  said 
with  the  utmost  simplicity,  and  without  the  remotest 
notion  that  an  imaginative  mind  could  exercise  a  sub- 
tle effect  on  a  mind  entirely  unimaginative,  through 


EUFUS  CIIOATE.  61 

that  grand  function  of  the  imagination  by  which  the 
person  who  has  it  enters  into  the  interior  recesses  of 
natures  which  differ  fundamentally  from  his  own,  and 
identifying  himself  for  the  moment  with  their  indi- 
vidualities, extorts  from  them  their  well-considered 
"  Yes." 

But  perhaps  a  stronger  instance  of  Choate's  method 
of  concealing  his  power  at  the  time  he  was  exercising 
it  with  the  most  potent  effect,  occurred  in  an  impor- 
tant case  where  the  evidence  was  so  conflicting  and 
the  points  of  law  so  intricate  that  dispassionate  minds 
might  have  long  paused  before  deciding  the  question 
in  dispute.  One  resolute  juryman  said  to  another,  as 
he  entered  the  "  box,"  —  "  Now,  mind  you,  there  is  one 
man  in  this  crowd  who  will  not  give  a  verdict  for  the 
client  of  that  man  Choate.  Why,  sir,  he  is  the  great 
corrupter  of  juries.  I  know  all  his  arts.  He  is  en- 
gaged by  fellows  who  wish  to  subvert  justice  between 
man  and  man.  I  hate  him  with  my  whole  heart  and 
soul."  When  the  verdict  was  given  for  Choate's  cli- 
ent, with  hardly  a  discussion  in  the  jury-room,  the 
wonder  was  expressed  that  this  obstinate  member  of 
the  conclave  agreed  so  readily  with  the  rest.  "  Oh," 
he  said, "  the  case  was  a  plain  one.  Choate  was  right 
this  time ;  and  you  know  it  would  have  been  scanda- 
lous for  me  to  violate  justice  because  I  had  a  prejudice 
against  the  person  who  supported  it.  Let  him  appear 
before  us  in  a  case  where  he  is  palpably  wrong,  as  in 
the  Tirrell  trial  or  the  Dalton  trial,  and  I  will  show 
you  that  I  'm  all  right.     He  never  can  humbug  me  !  " 


52  SOME  llECOLLECTIONS  OF 

His  power  of  lifting,  of  idealizing  his  clients,  of 
making  them  the  heroes  or  heroines  of  a  domestic  or 
sensational  novel,  was  never   more   brilliantly  illus- 
trated than  in  the  celebrated  Tirrell  trial,  to  which  I 
have  before  alluded.     Here  were  murder  and  arson, 
committed  in  a  low  brothel,  as  the  subject  of  the  pic- 
ture or  story ;  but  a  great  artist  —  a  sort  of  Yankee 
Spagnaletto  or  Victor  Hugo  —  was  suddenly  impro- 
vised to  paint  or  narrate  the  scene  and   incidents. 
The  whole  event  was  elevated  into  the  domain  of  high 
tragedy.     Those  who  listened  to  Mr.  Choate's  argu- 
ment can  never  forget  the  strange  kind  of  interest 
with  which  he  invested  the  wild  and  "  fast "  young 
man  and  his  stupid,  drunken  harlot.     It  was  as  if 
Albert  Tirrell  and  Maria  Bickford  were  on  a  par  with 
Othello  and  Desdemona.     Indeed,  the  advocate  might 
have   been   supposed   to   hold   a  brief   from  Othello 
against  a  charge  of  murdering  his  wife.     There  are 
certain   almost   miraculous  effects    produced  by  the^ 
mere  tone  of  voice  with  which  a  great  advocate  pro- 
nounces the  simplest  words.     Thus  when  Choate  said, 
"  Albert  loved  Maria,"  the  auditors  felt  the  same  kind 
of  pity  which  they  might  have  felt  had  Garrick  or 
Kean  uttered  the  words,  "  Othello  loved  Desdemona." 
It  is  considered  a  great  merit  in  an  actor's  or  orator's 
voice  if,  in  patlietic  passages,  he  has  "  tears  in  his 
tones ; "  but  Choate  in  this  instance  had  in  his  tones 
something  which  suggested  the  whole  sad,  horrible 
incidents  of  guilt  and  misery  which  it  was  his  task 
to  recount,  and  which  resulted  from  the  fatal  attach- 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  53 

ment  of  "  Albert "  to  "  Maria."  There  is  no  accurate 
report  of  his  argument  in  this  trial ;  and  indeed  if 
every  word  he  spoke  had  been  faithfully  taken  down, 
still  his  voice,  his  tones,  the  meaning  he  put  into  his 
utterance  of  some  plain  words,  could  not  have  been 
reported. 

One  incident  of  this  trial  afforded  Mr.  Choate  an 
excellent  opportunity  of  exerting  his  incomparable 
power  of  ridiculing  what  he  might  find  it  difficult  to 
dispose  of  by  reasoning.  Roxbury  is  but  four  miles 
from  Boston,  and  is  now,  indeed,  incorporated  with 
the  city  proper.  After  the  evidence  for  the  defence 
was  all  in,  and  the  arguments  were  to  begin,  the 
prosecuting  attorney  brought  forward  a  resident  of 
Roxbury  to  give  additional  evidence  against  Tirrell. 
Choate's  method  of  demolishing  the  effect  of  what  this 
witness  had  to  say  is  among  the  cherished  traditions 
of  the  Suffolk  Bar.  "  Where  was  this  tardy  and  be- 
lated witness,  that  he  comes  here  to  tell  us  all  he 
knows,  and  all  he  doesn't  know,  forty-eight  hours 
after  the  evidence  for  the  defence  is  closed  ?  Is  the 
case  so  obscure  that  he  never  heard  of  it  ?  Was  he  ill 
or  in  custody  ?  Was  he  in  Europe,  Asia,  or  Africa  ? 
Was  he  on  the  Red  Sea,  or  the  Yellow  Sea,  or  the 
Black  Sea,  or  the  Mediterranean  Sea?  .  .  .  No,  gen- 
tlemen, he  was  at  none  of  these  places  (comparatively 
easy  of  access),  but  —  and  I  would  call  your  attention, 
Mr.  Foreman,  to  the  fact,  and  urge  it  upon  your  atten- 
tion —  he  was  at  that  more  remote,  more  inaccessible 
region,  whence  so  few  travellers  return  —  Roxbury  ! " 


54  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OP 

One  of  the  greatest  of  Webster's  arguments  was 
that  on  the  trial  of  the  Knapps  for  the  murder  of  Mr. 
White,  of  Salem.  It  is  now  generally  conceded  that 
as  the  law  of  Massachusetts  stood  at  the  time,  John 
Francis  Knapp  was  illegally  convicted.  So  far  as 
the  technical  law  was  concerned,  he  was  as  innocent 
as  any  peaceful  citizen  who  walked  the  streets  of 
Salem.  His  guilt  was  plain,  but  he  was  not  legally 
guilty ;  and  it  was  only  by  Webster's  overmastering 
hold  on  the  minds  and  consciences  of  the  jury  that 
they  rendered  a  verdict  equitably  just,  but  legally 
wrong.  At  the  time  of  the  trial  Mr.  Choate  was  a 
young  lawyer,  engaged  in  doing  some  minor  services 
to  the  leading  counsel  who  appeared  for  the  prosecu- 
tion. Had  he  been  then  the  man  who  saved  Tirrell 
from  being  illegally  hanged,  and  had  been  counsel  for 
John  Francis  Knapp,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that, 
with  the  law  on  his  side,  he  would  have  been  more 
than  a  match  for  Webster.  It  is  curious  that  what  is 
called  "  Lynch  law "  is  sometimes  conducted  under 
all  tlie  solemn  forms  of  regulated  courts  of  justice. 
That  it  was  not  exercised  in  the  Tirrell  case  was 
owing  to  Rufus  Choate. 

The  effect  of  Choate' s  oratory  was  aided  by  the 
strength  of  expression  he  could  throw  into  his  face. 
"  Why,"  said  an  old  farmer,  listening  to  an  argument 
directed  against  his  own  interests,  —  "  why,  that  fel- 
low can  cant  his  countenance  so  as  to  draw  the  tears 
out  of  your  eyes."  He  also  had  a  singular  power  of 
so  changing  the  tone  of  his  voice,  that,  in  conversing 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  56 

gravely  with  one  person,  he  could  throw  in  an  "  aside  " 
to  another  which  was  audible  to  the  latter  alone.  On 
one  occasion  two  members  of  a  legal  firm  called  upon 
him  in  order  to  suggest  the  naming  of  a  day  for  con- 
sultation on  an  important  case  in  which  he  was  en- 
gaged as  leading  counsel.  He  happened  at  the  time 
to  be  overwhelmed  with  business,  and  hastily  remarked 
that  the  only  hours  he  had  to  spare  within  a  week 
were  after  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  ensuing 
day.  That  day  was  Sunday.  The  senior  member  of 
the  firm,  with  a  slight  Pharisaical  sniff  meant  to  indi- 
cate a  superior  scrupulosity  in  the  matter  of  ceremo- 
nial piety,  solemnly  replied  :  "  Mr.  Choate,  I  have 
been  for  thirty  years  a  member  of  the  Bar,  but  my 
conscience  has  forbidden  me  ever  to  transact  any 
worldly  business  on  the  Sabbath."  Choate  himself 
was  in  religious  matters  a  Calvinist  of  the  austerest 
type.  He  gave  one  glance  at  the  reprover  of  his 
sacrilegious  proposal,  —  a  glance  which  penetrated  to 
the  inmost  depths  of  the  little  pettifogging  soul  that 
wriggled  plainly  to  his  eye  under  its  mere  crust  of  reli- 
gious formality, — and  gravely  remarked:  "  You  know, 

Mr.  A ,  this  cause  is  peculiarly  one  which  falls 

under  that  class  of  cases  somewhere,  I  think,  men- 
tioned in  Scripture,  which  concerns  the  doing  of  good 
on  the  Lord's  Day  ;  but  I  honor  your  scruples  so  much 
that  I  would  not  for  the  world  ask  you  to  do  violence 
to  them."  The  conclusion  of  this  address  was  accom- 
panied with  a  wave  of  his  hand  which  brought  it  for  a 
few  moments  before  his  mouth ;  and  the  junior  part- 


5Q  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

ner  caught  these  words :  "  He  's  an  infernal  fool ;  you 
come."  How  this  swift,  significant  command  entered 
his  ears  without  getting  into  those  of  his  senior,  the 
young  man  could  never  understand,  as  the  three  were 
only  a  few  feet  apart  during  the  short  conference. 
Meanwhile  the  oracular  teacher  of  the  proprieties  of 
religion  moved  pompously  out  of  the  office,  fully  im- 
pressed with  the  idea  that  he  had  risen  amazingly  in 
the  estimation  of  the  great  Mr.  Choate  by  his  con- 
scientious refusal  to  perform  a  duty  of  justice  and 
mercy  on  what  he  erroneously  called  the  "  Sabbath." 
The  only  departure  from  literal  fact  in  the  narration 
of  this  anecdote  is  in  substituting  the  milder  adjective 
"  infernal "  for  the  stronger  one  impatiently  used  by 
Mr.  Choate  in  qualifying  the  noun  "  fool." 

In  alluding  to  Mr.  Choate's  imaginative  power  of 
transforming  himself  into  the  personalities  of  his 
clients,  of  surveying  acts  and  incidents  from  their 
point  of  view,  I  have  expressed  my  wonder  that  he 
could  so  quickly  relieve  himself  of  the  burden  he 
carried  when  the  cause  was  decided  against  him. 
Byron,  for  instance,  is  an  example  of  intense  genius, 
with  sensibility  so  blended  with  imagination  that  the 
type  of  human  nature  he  adopted  as  the  fit  vehicle  for 
the  expression  of  his  ideas  on  human  life  dominated 
at  last  his  own  individuality.  The  type  he  adopted 
was  the  misanthropical  type  of  our  immensely  various 
humanity.  He  dashed  into  it ;  but  the  trouble  with 
him  was  that  when  his  genius  got  in  to  this  form  of 
individual  character,  it  could  not  get  out.     Hence  the 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  67 

monotony  of  his  splendid  poetry.  Shakspeare,  in  his 
drama  of  "  Timon  of  Athens,"  went  deeper  into  the 
spiritual  sources  of  misanthropy  than  even  Byron  did, 
and  expressed  the  imaginative  experience  he  gained 
by  it  in  passages  of  more  dreadful  scorn  and  hatred 
of  ordinary  men  and  women  than  Byron  ever  dreamed 
of  uttering ;  but,  unlike  Byron,  ho  found  no  difficulty 
in  escaping  from  the  mental  mood  which  engrossed 
him  for  the  time,  and  passed  on  to  enter  into  and  re- 
produce other  forms  of  character  representing  more 
healthy  and  joyous  perceptions  of  human  life.  Now 
Clioate,  with  much  of  Byron's  intensity,  had  more  of 
Shakspeare's  comprehensiveness.  The  self-abandon- 
ment by  which  he  seemingly  became  a  person  entirely 
different  from  himself,  in  identifying  himself  with  his 
client,  was  accompanied  by  an  admirable  power  of 
self-direction,  which  enabled  him  easily  to  escape 
from  his  transient  metamorphosis.  He  not  only  could 
go  m,  but  could  get  out  of,  every  individuality  he  as- 
sumed for  the  time.  And  this  flexibility  of  mind  was 
not  necessarily  a  violation  of  intellectual  conscien- 
tiousness. It  simply  shed  light  on  the  case  in  dispute 
by  bringing  in  individual  character  as  a  factor  in  set- 
tling a  complicated  case  of  right  or  wrong.  But,  at 
all  events,  Mr.  Choate  cleared  his  mind  of  all  the 
vexations  of  a  jury  trial  after  the  decision  had  been 
made.  "  I  sometimes  feel,"  he  remarked  to  a  legal 
friend,  "  when  a  case  has  gone  against  me,  like  the 
Baptist  minister  who  was  baptizing  in  winter  a  crowd 
of  converts  through  a  large  hole  made  in  the  ice. 


68  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

One  brother — Jones,  I  think  —  disappeared  after  im- 
mersion, and  did  not  re-appear ;  probably  drifted  ten 
or  fifteen  feet  from  the  hole,  and  was  vainly  gasping 
under  ice  as  mauy  inches  thick.  After  pausing  a  few 
minutes,  the  minister  said,  'Brother  Jones  has  evi- 
dently gone  to  kingdom  come  :  bring  on  the  next.* 
Now,  I  am  not  unfeeling ;  but  after  all  has  been  done 
for  a  client  that  I  could  do,  —  and  I  never  spared  my- 
self in  advocating  his  legal  rights,  —  the  only  thing 
left  for  me  is  to  dismiss  the  case  from  my  mind, 
and  to  say  with  my  Baptist  brother, '  Bring  on  the 
next.' " 

That  this  habit  of  mind  was  entirely  disconnected 
from  any  languid  abandonment  of  the  cause  of  his 
client  while  there  was  the  slightest  hope  of  saving 
him,  is  humorously  shown  in  a  letter  which  Professor 
Brown  publishes  in  his  biography,  relating  to  a  cause 
decided  against  his  clients  by  the  Supreme  Court  at 
Washington.  "  The  court,"  he  wrote  to  the  Washing- 
ton lawyer  engaged  with  him  in  the  cause,  "  has  lost 
its  little  wits.  Please  let  me  have  (1)  our  brief  —  for 
the  law ;  (2)  the  defendant's  brief  —  for  the  sophis- 
try ;  (3)  the  opinion  —  for  the  foolishness  ;  and  never 
say  die."  The  august  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  which  Choate  was  accustomed  publicly  to 
celebrate  as  the  perfection  of  wisdom  and  equity, 
was  never  so  disrespectfully  treated  as  in  this  de- 
liciously  impudent  private  letter.  The  humor  of  it 
could  hardly  have  been  exceeded  by  Swift,  Sterne, 
or  Sydney  Smith. 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  69 

Of  the  extravagance  of  this  humor  let  me   give 

some  instances.     Thus,  Mr.  C was  distinguished 

among  all  the  able  leaders  of  the  Suffolk  Bar  for  his 
strict  attention  to  the  interests  of  his  clients,  for  his 
attendance  at  a  consultation  at  the  exact  minute 
appointed,  for  the  gravity  of  his  behavior  and  life 
in  every  respect,  and  especially  for  his  rigorous  ob- 
servance of  office  hours.  In  fact,  he  was  the  very 
incarnation  of  Boston  respectability.  On  one  occa- 
sion, when  he  was  solemnly  conferring  with  the  di- 
rectors of  a  great  corporation  on  a  pending  suit,  Mr. 
Choate  darted   into  the   room,  exclaiming :    "  Well, 

Mr.  C ,  I  am  glad  to  find  you  in  your  office  for 

once.  Do  you  know  that  for  the  past  forty-eight 
hours  I  have  hunted  for  you  day  and  night  through 
every  theatre,  bar-room,  and  dance-hall  in  Boston, 
without  getting  a  sight  of  you  ?  I  desire  a  consulta- 
tion in  the  case  of and ;  and  now  I  have 

at  last  discovered  you,  after  my  long  search,  I  shall 
insist  on  an  interview,"     The  delicious  incongruity 

of  the  charge  with  Mr.  C 's  character,  he  being 

known  as  the  most  punctual,  punctilious,  and  decor- 
ous of  Boston  mankind,  raised  a  roar  of  laughter 
from  the  business  men  present ;  and  tradition  ob- 
scurely hints  —  though  this  is  of  doubtful  authentic- 
ity—  that  even  Mr.  C smiled. 

On  the  morning  after  Charles  Sumner's  Fourth  of 
July  oration  on  "  The  True  Grandeur  of  Nations," 
there  naturally  gathered  at  his  office  in  Court  Street 
a  crowd  of  approvers  and  disapprovers  of  his  extreme 


60  SOME  KECOLLECTIONS  OF 

views  of  the  policy  and  duty  of  peace.  Professor 
Lieber,  among  others,  was  there,  and  I  remember 
the  earnestness  with  which  he  assailed  Sumner  on 
the  ground  that  his  abstract  principles  degraded 
from  their  intrinsic  dignity  all  the  great  battle-fields 
of  freedom.  Sumner  was  evidently  annoyed,  but 
could  only  get  in  here  and  there  a  palliating  word 
in  the  rush  of  Lieber's  indignant  eloquence.  "  Do 
you  tell  me,  my  dear  Sumner,"  he  shouted,  "  that 
I  must  give  up  Thermopylae  and  Marathon  and 
Scmpach  ? "  Then  Choate,  whose  office  was  on  the 
same  floor,  suddenly  dashed  into  the  room,  add- 
ing :  "  And  Waterloo !  Come,  Lieber,  to  my  den ; 
don't  bother  Sumner  any  more.  I  have  something 
to  discuss  with  you  ;  and  we  '11  fight  it  out,  yard- 
arm  to  yard-arm,  to  your  heart's  content.  Our  dear 
Charles  will  be  sufficiently  punished  for  his  heresies 
on  military  glory  by  less  redoubtable  antagonists 
than  you.  Come  along,  I  say  ! "  And  he  half  coaxed, 
half  dragged,  the  impassioned  Lieber  from  Sumner's 
office  into  his  own,  though  the  great  publicist  had 
only  begun  the  harangue  he  intended  to  address  to 
his  friend.  I  never  witnessed  a  more  comical  scene. 
Even  Sumner,  irritated  and  harassed  as  he  was, 
joined  in  the  general  laughter  at  the  success  of 
Choate's  flank  movement  to  protect  him  from  the 
disastrous  effects  of  Lieber's  direct  assault. 

There  are  so  many  traditions  of  Choate's  wit  and 
humor  that  the  task  of  selection  is  difficult.  Thus, 
on  his  first  election  to  the  national  House  of  Repre- 


RUrUS  CHOATE.  61 

sentatives  he  was  once  asked  by  a  lady  why  Mrs. 
Choate  did  not  accompany  him  to  Washington.  "  I 
assure  you,  Madam,"  he  replied,  "  that  I  have  spared 
no  pains  to  induce  her  to  come.  I  have  even  offered 
to  pay  half  her  expenses."  Then  there  is  his  remark 
on  John  Quincy  Adams's  relentlessness  as  a  debater. 
"  He  had,"  said  Choate,  "  an  instinct  for  the  jugular 
and  the  carotid  artery  as  unerring  as  that  of  any 
carnivorous  animal."  Of  a  lawyer  who  was  known 
to  be  as  contentious  as  he  was  dull-witted  he  said, 
"  He  's  a  bull-dog,  with  confused  ideas."  While  argu- 
ing a  case  he  took  a  position  which  appeared  to 
be  equitable  ;  but  the  court  demanded  that  he  should 
find  a  precedent  for  it.  "  I  will  look,  your  Honor, 
and  endeavor  to  find  a  precedent,  if  you  require 
it ;  though  it  would  seem  to  be  a  pity  that  the  court 
should  lose  the-  honor  of  being  the  first  to  establish 
so  just  a  rule."  Of  an  ugly  artist  who  had  painted 
a  portrait  of  himself  he  declared,  as  though  he  were 
paying  a  compliment  to  the  skill  of  the  painter,  that 
"it  is  a  jiagrant  likeness."  When  he  met  the  Rev. 
W.  R.  Alger,  shortly  after  the  latter  had  sent  him 
a  copy  of  his  "  Poetry  of  the  East,"  he  remarked, 
with  a  felicitous  combination  of  wit  and  wisdom : 
"  Tlie  Orientals  seem  to  be  amply  competent  to  meta- 
physics, wonderfully  competent  to  poetry,  scarcely 
competent  to  virtue,  utterly  incompetent  to  liberty." 
He  was  once  engaged  as  leading  counsel  in  an  im- 
portant mercantile  case.  The  jury  was  composed 
mostly  of  farmers  and  drovers  drawn  from  the  west- 


62  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

era  part  of  Massachusetts,  and  it  was  feared  that 
they  would  hardly  be  capable  of  doing  justice  to  the 
merits  of  a  complicated  commercial  transaction,  the 
very  phrases  and  figures  of  which  they  were  necessa- 
rily incompetent  to  comprehend.  His  anxious  client, 
just  before  the  trial  began,  asked  him  what  he  thought 
would  be  the  verdict.  "  Oh,"  he  replied,  "  the  law 
on  our  side  is  as  strong  as  thunder,  but"  —  with  a 
sHght  shrug  of  his  shoulders  —  "what  those  bovine 
and  bucolical  gentlemen  from  Berkshire  may  say, 
God  only  knows ! "  It  is  my  impression,  however, 
that  in  spite  of  the  difficulties  he  encountered  he 
won  the  verdict. 

Much  has  been  said  of  Mr.  Choate's  handwriting. 
It  was  always  the  favorite  jest  of  the  Suffolk  Bar. 
A  genius  akin  to  that  of  Young  or  ChampoUion 
would  be  required  to  decipher  his  briefs.  Yet  with 
his  eye  on  his  brief,  Mr.  Choate  never  hesitated  for 
a  word  in  making  a  statement  in  which  every  word 
used  was  significant  and  important.  Everybody  who 
has  attended  a  jury  trial  knows  that  the  best  advo- 
cates often  pause  in  their  exposition  of  their  case,  and 
indulge  in  that  hateful  sound  which  may  be  expressed 
in  letters  in  tliis  way :  "  err^  err,  errP  That  sound 
tends  to  kill  the  effect  of  all  eloquence.  To  be  sure, 
we  are  told  that  "  to  err  is  human  ; "  but  when  an 
orator  indulges  in  that  interruption  of  the  stream  of 
his  talk,  we  feel,  in  closing  the  quotation,  that  it  is 
indeed  "  divine  "  to  "  forgive."  The  short-hand  which 
Mr.  Choate  used,  though  undecipherable  by  any  other 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  63 

human  intelligence,  never  left  him  at  a  loss  for  the 
exact  word,  even  in  legal  arguments  before  an  as- 
sembly of  jurists ;  and  he  never  "  err-err-errcd." 

Mr.  George  Ticknor,  the  historian  of  Spanish  liter- 
ature, was  ohce  called  as  a  witness  in  a  case  in  which 
Mr.  Choate  was  engaged.  After  his  examination  he 
sat  by  the  side  of  the  eminent  counsellor  within  the 
bar.  He  was  attracted  by  the  notes  which  Mr.  Choate 
had  made  of  the  evidence,  and  remarked  to  him  that 
the  handwriting  reminded  him  of  two  autograph  let- 
ters in  his  possession,  —  one  of  Manuel  the  Great  of 
Portugal  (dated  1512),  and  another  of  Gonsalvo  de 
Cordova,  the  great  captain,  written  a  few  years  earlier. 
Nobody  who  has  looked  over  such  collections  as  those 
of  Mr.  Ticknor  or  Mr.  Prescott  can  refrain  from  feel- 
ing a  sensation  of  wonder  that  any  sense  can  be 
elicited  from  such  seemingly  unintelligible  scrawls. 
"These  letters,"  said  Mr.  Ticknor  to  Mr.  Choate, 
"were  written  three  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago, 
and  they  strongly  resemble  your  notes  of  the  present 
trial."'  Choate,  with  that  droll,  quizzical  expression 
which  lent  such  humor  to  his  face,  instantly  replied  : 
"  Remarkable  men,  no  doubt ;  they  seem  to  have  been 
much  in  advance  of  their  time."  How  delicious  this 
is!  the  quiet  assumption  that  the  infallible  sign  of 
advance  in  chirography  is  to  make  handwriting  more 
undecipherable  than  Egyptian  hieroglyphics  !  It  may 
here  be  stated  that  one  of  the  most  charming  ad- 
dresses he  ever  prepared  for  lyceums  was  a  lecture 
on  the  "  Romance  of  the  Sea."     Those  who  heard  it 


64  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

forty  years  ago  now  speak  of  it  as  a  masterpiece  of 
eloquence  ;  it  enjoyed  a  popularity  similar  to  that 
of  Wendell  Phillips's  lecture  on  "  The  Lost  Arts : " 
all  who  listened  to  it  were  clamorous  to  see  it  in 
print.  The  manuscript,  however,  was  stolen  by  some 
literary  rogue,  who  probably  conceived  he  might  make 
a  modest  yearly  income  by  delivering  it  in  remote 
country  towns  to  which  its  reputation  had  not  ex- 
tended. One  can  imagine  his  consternation  when 
he  found  that  he  could  not  decipher  a  word  of  the 
manuscript ;  that  he  had  wickedly  come  into  posses- 
sion of  a  treasure  belonging  to  that  description  of 
lost  property  which  is  commonly  advertised  as  of 
no  value  except  to  its  owner. 

It  is  sad,  in  reviewing  a  career  like  that  of  Mr. 
Choate,  to  see  on  how  frail  a  foundation  rests  the 
reputation  of  a  great  lawyer  and  advocate,  unless  he 
becomes  connected  here  and  there  with  causes  that 
assume  historic  importance.  Erskine,  a  man  whose 
natural  powers  were  much  below  Choate's,  owes  his 
eminent  position  to  his  advocacy  of  certain  persons 
who  were  in  danger  of  being  convicted  of  high 
treason  at  that  miserable  period  in  English  history 
(the  last  six  years  of  the  eighteenth  century)  when 
the  administration  of  the  younger  Pitt,  commanding 
an  immense  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons  and 
the  House  of  Lords,  seemed  bent  on  depriving  the 
English  people  of  the  right  of  free  speech,  and  of 
the  right  of  associating  to  protest  against  abuses  in 
government,  and  to  petition  for  their  removal.     The 


RUFUS  CnOATK  66 

greatness  of  Erskine  is  due  to  his  success  in  making 
a  jury  of  twelve  men,  as  in  his  defence  of  Hardy,  in 
1794,  overturn  the  tyrannical  projects  of  King,  Lords, 
and  Commons.  The  men  marked  out  by  the  min- 
istry to  be  hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered  for  high 
treason  were  saved  by  his  skill  and  eloquence,  and 
the  liberal  principles  of  the  English  Constitution  vin- 
dicated against  every  department  of  the  English  gov- 
ernment, including  the  judicial.  There  is  no  other 
example  in  history  where  one  man  has  so  influenced 
twelve  other  men  as  to  make  them  nullify  the  laws 
of  a  constitutional  government,  of  which  every  de- 
partment was  against  both  him  and  them.  So  un- 
mistakably was  the  popular  spirit  indicated  by  juries 
directed  by  Erskine,  that  the  Government  found  it- 
self in  the  dilemma  of  being  compelled  to  abolish 
trial  by  jury  altogether,  or  to  abandon  its  doctrine 
of  constructive  treason.  Erskine  thus  comes  into 
an  important  period  of  English  history  as  an  eminent 
force,  fully  equal  to  the  great  Mr.  Pitt,  inasmuch  as 
he  prevented  the  execution  of  the  worst  measures  of 
the  Government.  Still,  as  a  debater  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  Erskine  made  no  figure  at  all ;  and  the 
great  majority  of  his  arguments  at  the  Bar,  however 
successful  in  private  causes,  are  forgotten. 

Now,  Choate  never  had  a  similar  opportunity  to  be- 
come historical  by  successfully  vindicating  before  the 
courts  a  precious  principle  of  liberty  which  the  courts 
were  inclined  to  repudiate.  The  causes  in  which  he 
was  engaged  were  private,  not  public  causes,  and  the 

5 


QQ  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

great  powers  he  exhibited  in  conducting  them  have 
left  no  record  in  history  or  literature.  In  his  private 
diary  he  frequently  mentions  the  unsatisfactoriness 
of  all  the  fleeting  reputation  gained  by  his  political 
speeches  and  legal  arguments.  At  one  time  he  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  writing  a  series  of  essays,  in  which 
he  could  set  down  the  results  of  his  wide  extra-profes- 
sional reading  and  tliinking.  The  volume  was  to  be 
called  "  The  Lawyer's  Yacations."  He  even  went  so 
far  as  to  tell  his  friend  Judge  Warren  that  he  intended 
to  write  such  a  book.  "  How  far  have  you  got  in  it  ?  " 
asked  the  judge.  "  Well,"  Choate  replied,  "  I  've  got 
as  far  as  the  titlepage  and  a  motto.  The  title  is 
'  The  Lawyer's  Vacations  ; '  the  motto  I  've  forgotten. 
But  I  shall  show  that  the  lawyer's  vacation  is  the 
space  between  the  question  put  to  a  witness  and  his 
answer."  And,  in  fact,  such  was  hardly  an  exag- 
gerated representation  of  the  vacation  that  Choate 
allowed  himself. 

But  suppose  that  some  kind  genius  at  the  time 
when  Choate  had  arrived  at  the  age  of  forty  had 
showered  upon  him  an  independent  fortune.  He  was 
then  in  the  possession  of  robust  health,  and  his  mind 
was  in  the  fulness  of  its  strength  and  fertility. 
Retiring  from  the  practice  of  the  law,  his  insatiable 
intellectual  activity  would  have  sought  some  subject 
or  subjects  on  which  it  might  be  profitably  exercised. 
My  impression  is  that  he  would  have  selected  a  great 
historical  epoch  in  the  Old  World,  or  perhaps  fastened 
his  attention  on  the  annals  of  New  England.     All  his 


RUrUS  CHOATE.  G7 

knowledge  of  law,  all  his  experience  at  the  Bar,  all 
his  acquired  skill  in  analyzing  evidence,  would  have 
been  devoted  to  his  theme.  His  masterly  reasoning 
power,  his  capacity  for  large  generalizations,  would 
have  been  employed  on  a  vast  multitude  of  discon- 
nected facts,  which  he  would  have  investigated  with 
the  zeal  of  an  antiquary,  and  assimilated,  disposed, 
and  combined  with  the  skill  of  an  artist  and  the 
sagacity  of  a  thinker.  Every  philosophy  of  history, 
from  Vico's  to  Hegel's,  he  would  have  read  and 
digested.  Being  free  from  all  calls  upon  his  time 
preferred  by  importunate  suitors,  his  mind  would 
have  soon  gained  a  grand  repose,  without  losing  any 
of  its  healthy  vigor.  When  he  had  obtained  all  the 
materials  necessary  for  the  foundation  of  his  history, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  his  narrative  would  have 
possessed  an  interest  and  fascination  which  would 
charm  alike  the  scholar  and  the  ordinary  reader ;  for 
the  whole  representation  would  be  alive.  The  indi- 
viduals and  events  of  past  ages  would  have  been  made 
as  real  as  the  friends  we  daily  accost  in  the  streets 
or  the  incidents  which  actually  pass  before  our  eyes. 
His  imagination  would  have  brooded  over  his  general- 
ized facts,  vitalizing  all  it  touched ;  not  a  character 
would  have  been  allowed  to  appear  on  his  page  as  a 
mere  name ;  and  then  what  wit,  what  humor,  what 
bright  fancy,  what  ingenious  phrases,  what  happy  epi- 
thets would  have  aided  to  give  variety  to  the  generally 
sustained  march  of  the  style !  He  would,  I  think, 
have    excelled    Prescott,    Irving,   Bancroft,    Palfrey, 


G8  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

and  Motley ;  for,  without  any  disrespect  to  those 
eminent  historians,  he  was  intrinsically  more  richly 
gifted  than  any  of  them.  But  it  was  not  allowed  to 
Mr.  Clioate  to  exhibit  his  rare  faculties  except  under 
the  spur  of  continually  succeeding  occasions.  So  far 
as  the  literature  of  the  country  is  concerned,  he  has 
loft  on  it  no  appreciable  mark  of  his  literary  powers, 
though  in  Professor  Brown's  two  volumes  there  will 
be  found  some  splendid  specimens  of  his  logic  and 
rhetoric,  of  his  learning  and  his  command  of  the 
resources  of  the  English  language,  which  would  do 
credit  to  our  best  prose  writers.  It  is  the  old  irony 
of  fate.  Nature  liberally  bestowed  on  this  man  some 
of  the  finest  and  noblest  qualities,  which  she  is  gen- 
erally so  niggardly  in  intrusting  to  her  children, — 
vivid  imagination,  vigorous  intelligence,  quickness  of 
perception,  capacity  for  unintermitted,  self-rewarding 
toil ;  wit,  humor,  a  genial  disposition ;  an  intense 
love  for  the  beautiful  and  good  ;  an  instinctive  attrac- 
tion for  the  higher  things  of  the  mind  ;  a  heroic  senti- 
ment which  recognized  the  slightest  manifestation  of 
heroism  in  the  humblest  of  mankind  and  womankind, 
and  which  kindled  into  rapture  when  it  contemplated 
and  communed  with  the  grand  heroic  spirits  which 
illuminate  history ;  a  practical  sagacity  which  pre- 
vented enthusiasm  from  obscuring  the  teachings  of 
sober  judgment ;  a  heart  overflowing  with  beneficence 
and  good-will  to  all  human  beings ;  a  brain  teeming 
with  facts,  ideas,  and  images,  incapable  of  pausing  in 
its  creative  activity,  and  finding  its  repose  only  in 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  69 

a  variation  of  the  objects  to  which  its  activity  was 
directed.  And  we  can  conceive  of  the  old  grand 
Dame  muttering,  as  she  accomplished  her  work : 
"  Well,  you  fools  have  long  been  waiting  for  a  man 
of  genius  to  ofiPset  the  commonplace  creatures  I  or- 
dinarily fashion  to  do  their  work  in  this  miserable 
world  :  here  he  is !  "  Then  we  may  conceive  of  Cir- 
cumstance, the  god  of  this  lower  world,  stepping  in 
and  declaring  that  this  favorite  of  Nature  shall  not 
be  a  great  poet,  or  a  great  historian,  or  a  great  politi- 
cal philosopher,  but  shall  exercise  his  genius  on  per- 
ishable topics,  and  be  defrauded  of  his  right  to  attain 
the  permanent  fame  which  men  less  endowed  easily 
accomplish.  He  shall  scatter  his  native  gifts  in  a 
thousand  ways ;  delight  everybody  he  meets  in  a 
chance  conversation  with  the  abundant  wealth  of  his 
intellect  and  wit ;  thrill  popular  assemblies  by  occa- 
sional orations  which  leave  no  record  beyond  the 
hour ;  captivate  senates  with  an  eloquence  which  is 
connected  with  no  measure  he  has  himself  originated  ; 
be  allowed  some  few  hours  in  a  week  to  commune 
with  Greek  and  Latin  poets,  historians,  and  philoso- 
phers, whom  he  aches  to  emulate,  but  whom  he  shall 
have  hardly  the  leisure  to  translate  ;  and  shall  be 
compelled  to  toil  for  his  daily  bread  in  courts  of  law, 
where  his  magnificent  abilities  shall  be  acknowledged 
and  rewarded,  but  the  results  of  which  shall  have  no 
place  on  the  memory  of  mankind.  Such  was  Choate's 
fate.  Circumstance  controlled  Nature.  Everybody 
who   knew   him,   everybody   who    listened    to    him, 


70  SOME  KECOLLECTIONS  OP 

whether  young  men  of  letters  or  grave  judges,  felt 
that  a  strange  original  genius  had  somehow  dropped 
down  into  our  somewhat  prosaic  New  England,  had 
done  his  life-work  in  a  wonderfully  meteoric  way,  and 
had  vanished  from  us  suddenly,  without  leaving  on 
our  politics  or  literature  the  abiding  impression  which 
his  genius  seemed  so  capable  of  impressing  on  both. 
That  he  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  our 
country  has  produced  is  beyond  doubt ;  but  it  is  diffi- 
cult for  those  who  knew  him  to  convey  to  a  younger 
generation,  which  never  passed  "  under  the  wand  of 
the  magician,"  the  effect  he  produced  on  their  own 
minds  and  hearts. 

Mr.  Choate,  in  his  published  writings,  suffers  much 
from  the  necessary  divorce  between  his  style  and  the 
inflections  of  his  voice.  His  Dartmouth  oration  on 
Webster  is  among  the  manuscripts  in  the  Boston 
Public  Library,  and  it  appears  to  the  eye  a  mere 
chaos  of  indecipherable  words,  sprinkled  with  semi- 
colons and  colons,  relieved  here  and  there  by  fierce 
dashes  of  the  pen,  indicating  a  pause  between  the 
comma  and  the  semicolon.  It  contains  also  the  long- 
est sentence  ever  written  by  man  since  Cadmus  in- 
vented letters.  His  penmanship  was  so  bad  that 
when  he  wrote  an  important  note  to  Daniel  Webster, 
touching  the  refusal  of  the  Boston  city  government  to 
grant  Faneuil  Hall  for  a  meeting  of  the  supporters  of 
the  7th  of  March  speech,  Mr.  Webster  could  not  make 
out  the  meaning  of  a  single  word.  "Tell  Choate," 
said  Webster  to  Mr.  Harvey,  "  that  his  handwriting  is 


RUEUS  CHOATE,  71 

barbarous ;  that  he  should  go  to  a  writing-school  and 
take  a  quarter's  lessons.  He  gives  me  advice  as  to 
what  it  is  proper  for  me  to  do,  and  I  cannot  under- 
stand one  of  his  infernal  hieroglyphics." 

The  peculiarity  of  Choate's  written  style  was  this, 
that  it  required  the  inflections  of  his  voice  to  make  it 
as  clear  and  flowing  as  it  came  from  his  own  mind. 
I  would  venture  to  undertake  the  reading  of  the  most 
formidable  sentence  in  his  eulogy  on  Webster,  and  by 
merely  imitating  his  tones  prove  that  the  style  was  as 
lucid  and  exact  as  it  was  kindling  and  expansive.  In 
view  of  the  number  of  his  adjectives  as  contrasted 
with  the  meagreness  of  his  nouns,  it  was  said  of  him 
that  he  "  drove  a  substantive  and  six."  Yet  he  put 
meaning  into  every  one  of  his  adjectives,  and  was 
really  the  least  verbose  of  impassioned  orators.  His 
epithets  always  stood  for  things,  each  adjective  de- 
scribing, qualifying,  modifying,  or  emphasizing  the 
main  idea  he  desired  to  convey.  In  Fletcher's  "  Two 
Noble  Kinsmen,"  Arcite  says,  — 

"  We  felt  our  fiery  horses 
Like  proud  seas  under  us." 

In  driving  his  perilous  team  of  "  a  substantive  and 
six,"  Mr.  Choate  partook  in  this  grand  elation  of  con- 
scious genius  ;  gloried  in  urging  on  his  fiery  steeds  in 
headlong  haste  to  their  appointed  goal,  and  came  in 
at  the  end  of  the  race  flushed,  it  may  be,  and  breath- 
less, but  still  victorious  over  all  competitors.  He 
never  met  at  the  Bar  anybody  who  could  match  him 


72  SOME  EECOLLECTIONS  OF 

in  fearlessly  driving  that  "  substantive  and  six "  in 
the  legal  "  Olympian  games."  In  his  case,  Pindar 
directed  the  chariot  as  well  as  sung  the  triumphs  of 
the  race. 

It'  is  to  be  remarked  that  Choate's  real  emphasis 
was  in  the  lower  note  of  his  flexible  voice.  His  sub- 
stantive came  in  quietly  after  an  ascending  scale  of 
adjectives,  the  last  uttered  in  the  loudest  tone  he  could 
command.  Thus,  in  the  well-known  caricature  of  his 
method  in  a  supposed  legal  controversy  as  to  whether 
the  second-hand  harness  of  his  client  was  worth  a  six- 
pence, he  is  reported  as  saying :  "  To  be  sure,  gentle- 
men of  the  jury,  this  was  not  a  harness  distinguishable 
by  the  meretricious  gloss  and  glitter  calculated  to 
catch  the  eye  of  the  vulgar  crowd ;  but  I  will  put  it 
to  you  as  citizens  and  as  men  whether  it  was  n't  a  safe, 
SOUND,  SUBSTANTIAL,  SECOND-HAND  harness." 
The  substantive  "  harness  "  in  this  connection  was,  as 
it  were,  dropped  in  as  a  seemingly  unimportant  word ; 
but  as  he  pronounced  it,  without  any  physical  empha- 
sis, it  became  all  the  more  mentally  emphatic.  This 
peculiarity  pervaded  all  his  spoken  eloquence ;  the 
high,  the  almost  screaming  tone  with  which  he  uttered 
his  last  smiting  adjective  subsided  in  a  second  to  the 
deep,  intense,  quiet  utterance  of  the  noun. 

I  am  strongly  tempted,  in  conclusion,  to  imitate 
one  of  his  long  sentences  in  summing  up  my  impres- 
sion of  his  intellectual  character.  Suppose  I  put  it  in 
this  way :  "  He  was  endowed  by  Nature  with  a  will 
singularly  vigorous  and   a  mind  eminently  plastic; 


RUrUS  CHOATE.  73 

and  this  combination  of  force  and  fluency,  this  com- 
bination by  which  self-direction  is  never  lost  in  all  the 
fervors  of  seeming  self-abandonment,  the  flexible  intel- 
lect flowing  into  all  the  multitudinous  moulds  which 
the  various  exigencies  of  the  case  may  demand, — 
now  this,  now  that ;  homely,  if  need  be,  clad  in  the 
*  russet  gray '  of  the  peasant,  and  anon  doffing  the  im- 
perial robes  and  putting  on  the  regal  crown ;  every- 
where and  in  every  situation  equal,  just  equal,  to  the 
claims  of  the  occasion ;  never  faltering  in  any  of  the 
Protean  shapes  it  pleased  him  to  assume,  but  always 
strong,  always  earnest,  always  determined  to  carry  to 
its  ultimate  the  uppermost  conception  glowing  in  his 
ever-fertile  brain;  now  jesting,  now  reasoning,  but 
whether  jesting  or  reasoning,  never  losing  sight  of  his 
purpose  to  persuade,  to  convince,  to  overpower  the 
persons  he  was  to  influence ;  contracting  or  expand- 
ing his  mind  with  equal  ease,  so  that  it  resembled  the 
fabled  tent  of  the  Oriental  prince,  which  might  be  so 
condensed  as  to  become  a  mere  toy  for  a  lady's  finger, 
and  then  again  so  spread  out  that  armies  might  re- 
pose under  its  grateful  shade  ;  gifted  with  wit,  humor, 
fancy,  imagination,  passion,  understanding ;  immensely 
acquisitive  as  well  as  inquisitive  of  knowledge ;  tire- 
less in  industry,  so  that  it  could  be  said  of  him,  as 
Coke  said  of  Raleigh,  that  he  could  '  toil  terribly ; ' 
facing  the  most  abstruse  problems  of  law  with  an  in- 
trepidity of  intellect  which  no  difficulties  could  daunt, 
and  no  obscurity  perplex ;  fearless  in  grappling  with 
opposition,  whether  the  opposition  came  in  the  sub- 


74  SOME  KECOLLECTIONS  OF 

stance  of  a  man  or  in  the  spectre  of  an  idea ;  so  im- 
perturbably  serene  at  the  centre  of  his  being,  that  in 
the  very  tempest  and  whirlwind  of  his  eloquence  he 
never  lost  the  admirable  poise  of  his  nature,  nor  the 
fine  discretion  which  makes  eloquence  efficient  for  its 
intended  purpose :  this  man  stands  before  us  a  won- 
derful example  of  the  impulses  and  capacities  of  gen- 
ius, —  of  genius  ever  attended  by  that  reason  which 
looks  before  and  after ;  by  that  learning  without  which 
reasoning  is  but  an  idle  exercise,  an  abundant  agita- 
tion of  wit  on  matter  so  slight  as  to  do  no  justice  to 
the  powers  it  so  sparsely  feeds  with  facts,  —  facts  with- 
out which  the  logic  of  Aristotle  himself  would  be  but  an 
ingenious  delusion  and  a  pleasing  snare ;  something 
that  the  poet  has  indicated  in  that  fine  line  — 

*  Ne  subtler  web  Arachne  cannot  spin  ; ' 

and,  yet  more,  with  Reason  and  Learning,  having  for 
their  constant  companion  Imagination,  with  '  his  gar- 
land and  singing  robes  about  him,'  decorating,  en- 
livening, penetrating,  vitalizing  the  argument  and  the 
facts,  so  that  the  logic  becomes  as  beautiful  as  '  a 
golden  exhalation  of  the  dawn,'  and  we  watch  its  pro- 
cesses as  we  would  that  of  an  army  marching  to  as- 
sured victory,  with  all  its  banners  flaming  in  the 
consenting  and  joyous  air:  with  all  these  powers 
working  in  glad  harmony  together,  each  assisting  the 
other,  each  knowing  its  place,  each  instinctively  con- 
scious when  it  should  be  master  or  servant,  and  each 
seemingly  unfettered  in  its  own  spontaneous  move- 


RUFUS  CHOATE.  75 

meiit,  —  to  all  these  powers  and  accomplisliments,  I 
8aj,  he  added  the  great  tidal  wave  of  passion,  impel- 
ling, hurrying  everything  onward  that  it  caught  in  its 
tyrannous  sweep,  and  leaving  but  wrecks  on  the  op- 
posing shore,  where  it  broke  in  iridescent  spray  and 
foam." 

This  is,  of  course,  little  better  than  a  caricature  of 
the  way  in  which  Mr.  Choate  grappled  with  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  long  sentence,  —  the  sentence  of  Hooker, 
Milton,  Clarendon,  and  De  Quincey ;  but  still,  if  it 
were  read  by  anybody  who  could  imitate  the  inflections 
of  Mr.  Choate's  voice,  and  thus  indicate  the  natural 
way  in  which  every  stated  thought  or  fact  suggests 
something  which  modifies  or  enforces  it,  and  the  ac- 
cumulating process  goes  on  to  the  point  where  it 
rhythmically  closes,  I  think  my  feeble  imitation  would 
present  little  to  puzzle  the  grammarian  or  perplex  the 
minds  of  ordinary  men.  The  fact  that  juries  and 
popular  audiences  had  no  trouble  in  getting  at  his 
meaning  proves  that  his  long  sentences  were  lucid, 
however  obscure  they  may  appear  to  the  eye  as  read 
in  the  mangled  reproductions  of  reporters.  Oh,  if 
the  inflections  of  his  voice  could  be  printed !  Then 
it  would  be  shown  that  the  soul  of  the  man  threaded 
every  intricacy  of  the  complicated  sentence,  delicately 
noting  each  variation  of  the  dominant  thought,  and 
vitalizing  the  whole  with  its  kindling  inspiration.  I 
have  listened  to  some  of  the  arguments  and  addresses 
in  which  he  exhibited  this  mastery  of  the  resources 
of  the  English  language,  making  words  his  "  servile 


76  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  RUFUS  CHOATE. 

instruments,"  and  forcing  everything  to  bend  to  his 

will,  —  syntax,  it  may  be  said,  among  the  rest,  —  when 

he  inevitably  brought  to  my  mind  the  glorious  image 

in  which  Charles  Lamb  celebrates  the  rising  of  the 

sun,  — 

"  To  see  the  sun  to  bed,  and  to  arise, 
Like  some  hot  amorist,  with  glowing  eyes, 
Bursting  the  lazy  bonds  of  sleep  that  bound  him, 
With  all  his  fires  and  travelling  glories  round  him." 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

In  the  commerce  of  nations  it  is  important  that 
there  should  be  an  interchange  of  minds  as  well  as  of 
merchandise.  In  the  annual  reports  of  our  Secre- 
taries of  the  Treasury  the  imports  and  exports  are 
correctly  given  in  the  current  coin  or  currency  of  the 
land,  and  the  balance  of  trade,  either  for  or  against 
us,  is  correctly  estimated ;  but  in  stating  the  value  of 
our  imports  there  is  an  unavoidable  omission  of  our 
annual  importations  of  skilled  laborers,  of  inventors, 
of  engineers,  and  of  men  of  genius  generally  in  the 
various  departments  of  art,  literature,  and  science. 
The  worth  of  such  men  cannot  be  gleaned  from  the 
records  of  the  Custom  House ;  yet  it  is  plain  that  they 
must  add  enormously  to  the  wealth  of  the  country  by 
simply  diffusing  their  exceptional  knowledge  or  exer- 
cising their  exceptional  talents.  Indeed,  there  can  be 
no  imported  wealth  which  exceeds  in  value  the  im- 
portation of  the  creators  of  wealth.  The  body  which 
contains  an  ingenious  and  inventive  mind  may  not  be 
equal  in  bulk  to  a  single  case  of  goods  which  comes 
over  in  the  same  ship  with  it;  but  if  the  mind 
lodged  in  the  body  be  that  of  a  Watt,  an  Arkwright, 
or  a  Bessemer,  it  is  impossible  to  compute  the  number 


78  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

of  the  fleets  that  may  be  needed  to  export  the  pro- 
ducts of  his  brain.  Even  in  the  matter  of  pure 
science,  it  is  difficult  to  estimate  the  value  in  dollars 
and  cents  of  an  imported  man  of  science  of  the  first 
class.  He  may  seem  to  scorn  all  applications  of  his 
discoveries  to  useful  ends ;  but  it  is  certain  that  a 
crowd  of  bright,  practical  minds  will  follow  in  the 
path  of  his  discoveries,  and  convert  all  his  additions 
to  the  knowledge  of  Nature  into  additional  means  for 
the  conquest  of  Nature. 

At  any  rate,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  vessel 
which  brought  Louis  Agassiz  to  our  shores  brought  a 
scientific  intelligence  and  scientific  force  which  out- 
valued not  only  all  the  rest  of  the  cargo,  but  of  a 
thousand  ordinary  cargoes.  In  getting  thorough  pos- 
session of  him,  in  making  him  an  American  citizen, 
and  in  resolutely  refusing,  with  his  hearty  concur- 
rence, to  deliver  him  up  to  the  country  which  after- 
ward claimed  his  services,  the  United  States  must  be 
considered  to  have  made  a  good  bargain.  He  was  too 
poor  when  he  arrived  here  to  pay  any  "  duties  "  into 
the  Treasury ;  but  the  impulse  he  gave  to  science  in 
this  country  enriched  us  in  a  degree  that  cannot  be 
measured  by  any  money  standard.  Indeed,  the  Amer- 
ican opponents  of  his  scientific  theories  were  and  ai*e 
among  the  foremost  to  acknowledge  the  marvellous 
effects  of  his  scientific  inspiration ;  for  he  popularized 
pure  science,  and  lifted  high  in  public  esteem  the 
whole  body  of  investigators  who  were  loyally  engaged 
in  its  service.    From  him  came  the  most  notable  of 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  79 

all  the  maxims  which  illustrate  the  disinterestedness 
of  the  chivalry  of  science.  At  the  time  he  was  ab- 
sorbed in  some  minute  investigations  in  a  difficult 
department  of  zoology,  he  received  a  letter  from  the 
president  of  a  lyceum  at  the  West,  offering  him  a 
large  sum  for  a  course  of  popular  lectures  on  nat- 
ural  history.     His  answer  was :    "  I  cannot  afford 

TO   WASTE   MY   TIME   IN    MAKING    MONEY."       The    WOrds 

deserve  to  be  printed  in  capitals ;  but  Agassiz  was 
innocently  surprised  that  a  sentiment  very  natural 
to  him  should  have  excited  so  much  comment.  He 
knew  that  scores  of  his  brother  scientists,  American 
and  European,  would  have  used  the  words  "  afford  " 
and  "■  waste  "  in  the  same  sense,  had  they  been  sim- 
ilarly interrupted  in  an  investigation  which  promised 
to  yield  them  a  new  fact  or  principle.  Still,  the  an- 
nouncement from  such  an  authority  that  there  was 
a  body  of  men  in  the  United  States  who  could  not 
afford  to  waste  time  in  making  money  had  an  im- 
mense effect.  It  convinced  thousands  of  intelligent 
and  opulent  men  of  business,  who  had  never  be- 
fore thought  a  moment  of  time  devoted  to  the 
making  of  money  could  be  wasted,  that  science 
meant  something;  and  it  made  them  liberal  of 
their  money  when  it  was  asked  for  scientific  pur- 
poses. It  did  even  more  than  this,  —  it  made 
them  honor  the  men  who  were  placed  above  the 
motives  by  which  they  themselves  were  ordinarily 
influenced. 

My  first  impression  of  the  genius  of  Agassiz  was 


80  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

gained  when  he  was  in  the  full  vigor  of  his  mental 
and  physical  powers.  Some  thirty-five  years  ago,  at 
a  meeting  of  a  literary  and  scientific  club  of  which  I 
happened  to  be  a  member,  a  discussion  sprang  up  con- 
cerning Dr.  Hitchcock's  book  on  "  bird-tracks,"  and 
plates  were  exhibited  representing  his  geological  dis- 
coveries. After  much  time  had  been  consumed  in 
describing  the  bird-tracks  as  isolated  phenomena,  and 
in  lavishing  compliments  on  Dr.  Hitchcock,  a  man 
suddenly  rose  who  in  five  minutes  dominated  the 
whole  assembly.  He  was,  he  said,  much  interested 
in  the  specimens  before  them,  and  he  would  add  that 
he  thought  highly  of  Dr.  Hitchcock's  book,  as  far  as  it 
accurately  described  the  curious  and  interesting  facts 
he  had  unearthed ;  but,  he  added,  the  defect  in  Dr. 
Hitchcock's  volume  is  this,  that  "  it  is  dees-creep-^eeve, 
and  not  com-par-a-^eeve."  It  was  evident  throughout 
that  the  native  language  of  the  critic  was  French,  and 
that  he  found  some  difficulty  in  forcing  his  thoughts 
into  English  words ;  but  I  never  can  forget  the  in- 
tense emphasis  he  put  on  the  words  "  descriptive " 
and  "  comparative,"  and  by  this  emphasis  flashing 
into  the  minds  of  the  whole  company  the  difference 
between  an  enumeration  of  strange,  unexplained  facts 
and  the  same  facts  as  interpreted  and  put  into  rela- 
tion with  other  facts  more  generally  known.  The 
moment  he  contrasted  "  dees-creep-teeve  "  with  "  com- 
par^a-teeve"  one  felt  the  vast  gulf  that  yawned 
between  mere  scientific  observation  and  scientific 
intelligence,  between  eyesight  and  insight,  between 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  81 

minds  that  doggedly  perceive  and  describe  and  minds 
that  instinctively  compare  and  combine.  The  speaker 
vehemently  expressed  his  astonishment  that  a  scien- 
tist could  observe  such  phenomena  and  yet  feel  no 
impulse  to  bring  them  into  relation  to  other  facts 
and  laws  scientifically  established.  The  critic  was,  of 
course,  Agassiz,  then  in  the  full  possession  of  all  his 
exceptional  powers  of  body  and  mind.  You  could 
not  look  at  him  without  feeling  that  you  were  in 
the  presence  of  a  magnificent  specimen  of  physical, 
mental,  and  moral  manhood ;  that  in  him  was  real- 
ized Sainte-Beuve's  ideal  of  a  scientist,  — "  the  soul 
of  a  sage  in  the  body  of  an  athlete."  At  that  time  he 
was  one  of  the  comeliest  of  men.  His  full  and  ruddy 
face,  glowing  with  health  and  animation,  was  crowned 
by  a  brow  which  seemed  to  be  the  fit  home  for  such  a 
comprehensive  intelligence ;  and  the  slight  difficulty 
he  overcame  in  enunciating  English  words  only  lent 
to  them  increased  significance.  He  gave  the  impres- 
sion that  every  word  he  uttered  embodied  a  fact  or  a 
principle.  Afterward  he  so  adapted  his  organs  of 
speech  to  the  English  language,  that  he  ended  in 
speaking  and  writing  it  as  though  it  were  his  mother- 
tongue.  If  there  was  any  exception  to  be  made,  it  was 
in  one  of  his  favorite  terms,  "  development."  He 
never  completely  overcame  his  tendency  to  pronounce 
it  "  devil-opement." 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  meet  him  often  during 
the  last  twenty-five  years  of  his  life  ;  but  my  first  im- 
pression —  the  impression  of  the  comprehensiveness  of 

6 


8^  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

his  mind — was  more  and  more  confirmed  as  I  came 
to  know  him  more  intimately.  All  the  facts  and  prin- 
ciples of  his  special  science  were  systematized  in  his 
vast  and  joyous  memory,  so  that  he  was  ever  ready 
to  reply  to  any  unexpected  question  concerning  the 
most  obscure  nooks  and  corners  of  natural  history ; 
but  in  replying,  he  ever  indicated  that  his  immense 
grasp  of  the  details  of  his  science  was  free  from  any 
disposition  to  exaggerate  any  detail  out  of  its  connec- 
tions. No  isolated  fact  could  exist  in  his  mind.  The 
moment  it  was  apprehended,  it  fell  easily  into  rela- 
tionship to  the  throng  of  other  facts  quietly  stored 
in  his  broad  intelligence,  and  became  one  of  a 
group  which  illustrated  a  principle.  His  knowledge 
of  particulars  was  extensive,  minute,  and  accurate. 
Every  separate  fact  was  vividly  present  to  the  eye  of 
his  imagination,  and  yet  all  his  knowledge  was  gen- 
eralized knowledge.  In  thinking  therefore  on  hia 
accumulated,  his  multitudinous  materials,  it  may  be 
said  that  details  were  never  in  his  way  or  out  of  his 
way :  those  that  he  needed  crowded  at  once  upon  his 
mind ;  those  he  did  not  need  kiept  at  a  respectful  dis- 
tance. I  often  watched  the  operations  of  his  intellect 
when  he  was  unexpectedly  drawn  into  a  discussion, 
but  I  never  could  detect  any  sign  of  that  confusion  of 
mind  which  results  from  a  disturbance  of  the  proper 
relations  of  memory  to  understanding.  The  facts  he 
needed,  as  I  have  said,  came  at  once  to  do  his  bidding; 
and  the  thousands  of  irrelative  facts  which  were  also 
at  his  command  never  obtruded  on  his  attention  to 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  83 

obstruct  the  rapid  course  of  his  lucid  argument.  It 
would  seem  as  if  there  never  was  among  naturalists 
an  intellect  more  thoroughly  disciplined  than  his,  or 
which  was  less  hampered  by  the  abundance  of  the 
material  on  which  it  worked. 

But  the  marvel  of  Agassiz,  and  a  never-ceasing 
source  of  wonder  and  delight  to  liis  friends  and  com- 
panions, was  the  union  in  his  individuality  of  this 
solidity,  breadth,  and  depth  of  mind  with  a  joyousness 
of  spirit,  an  immense  overwhelming  geniality  of  dis- 
position, which  flooded  every  company  he  entered  with 
the  wealth  of  his  own  opulent  nature.  Placed  at  the 
head  of  a  table,  with  a  shoulder  of  mutton  before  him, 
he  so  carved  the  meat  that  every  guest  was  flattered 
into  the  belief  that  the  host  had  given  him  the  best 
piece.  His  social  power  exceeded  that  of  the  most 
brilliant  conversationists  and  of  the  most  delicate 
epicures  ;  for  he  was  not  only  fertile  in  thoughts,  but 
wise  in  wines  and  infallible  in  matters  of  fish  and 
game.  It  was  impossible  to  place  him  in  any  com- 
pany where  he  was  out  of  place.  The  human  nature 
in  him  fell  into  instinctive  relations  with  every  kind 
and  variety  of  human  nature  outside  of  him.  His 
wide  experience  of  life  had  brought  him  into  familiar 
contact  with  emperors,  kings,  and  nobles,  with  scien- 
tists and  men  of  letters,  with  mechanics,  farmers,  and 
day-laborers,  —  in  short,  with  men  divided  by  race, 
rank,  wealth,  and  every  other  distinction  from  other 
men  ;  and  by  the  felicity  of  his  cosmopolitan  nature 
he  placed  himself  on  an  easy  equality  with  them  all, — 


84  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

never  cringing  to  those  conventionally  above  him, 
never  "  condescending "  to  those  intellectually  below 
him,  but  cordially  welcoming  everybody  he  met  on 
the  common  ground  of  human  brotherhood.  Himself 
a  strong  man,  his  test  of  manhood  was  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  conventional  rules.  When  he  discovered 
a  real  man,  it  was  indifferent  to  him  whether  he  occu- 
pied a  palace  or  a  hovel ;  and  certainly  no  man  of 
science  ever  equalled  him  in  captivating  the  represent- 
atives of  all  grades  of  rank  and  intelligence  by  sheer 
force  of  human  sympathy.  The  French,  or  Austrian, 
or  Brazilian  emperor,  the  peasant  of  the  Alps,  the 
"  rough "  of  our  Western  plains,  agreed  at  least  in 
one  opinion,  —  that  Agassiz  was  a  grand  specimen 
of  manhood.  His  scientific  contemporaries,  though 
brought  into  occasional  antagonism  with  his  opinions, 
admitted  that  he  possessed  the  one  exceptional  charm 
which  they  lacked  ;  for  this  wonderful  creature  could 
by  his  social  qualities  make  pure  science  popular 
among  a  large  class  of  voters  who  had  hardly  risen  to 
an  appreciation  of  the  immense  advantages  which  had 
followed  the  many  practical  applications  of  pure  sci- 
ence to  their  own  welfare  and  advancement.  Indeed, 
the  impulse  that  Agassiz  gave  to  the  cause  of  science 
in  the  United  States  is  universally  admitted  to  have 
been  as  remarkable  as  it  was  beneficent.  A  distin- 
guished American  scientist,  who  was  entirely  unin- 
fluenced by  the  geological  and  zoological  theories  of 
Agassiz,  once  confided  to  me  his  judgment  as  to  the 
value  of  the  great  naturalist's  work  as  a  scientific 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  85 

force.  "  T  look  upon  him,"  he  said,  "  as  a  prophet,  as 
an  apostle  of  science ;  he  has  made  every  honest  in- 
vestigator his  debtor  ;  he  has  not  only  elevated  in 
public  esteem  the  intellectual  class  to  which  he  be- 
longs, but  he  has  induced  the  moneyed  class  and  the 
political  class  to  give  science  the  means  of  carry- 
ing out  its  purposes.  Since  Agassiz  came  into  the 
country  you  cannot  but  have  noticed  that  private 
capitalists.  State  Legislatures,  and  the  Congress  of 
the  country  have  been  liberal  of  aid  to  every  good 
scientific  enterprise.  We  owe  a  great  part  of  this 
liberality  to  Agassiz.  He  it  was  who  magnetized  the 
people  with  his  own  scientific  enthusiasm.  He  made 
science  popular,  because  in  him  science  was  individ- 
ualized in  the  most  fascinating  and  persuasive  of 
human  beings.  All  the  rest  of  us  are  more  or  less  so 
dominated  by  our  special  lines  of  investigation,  or  so 
infirm  in  physical  health,  or  so  unsympathetic  with 
ignorant  people,  or  so  supercilious,  or  so  controlled 
by  some  innate  '  cussedness '  of  disposition,  that  we 
cannot  readily  adapt  ourselves  to  the  ways  of  men  of 
the  world ;  but  Agassiz,  with  his  enormous  physical 
health  and  vitality,  and  his  capacity  to  meet  all  kinds 
of  men  on  their  own  level,  drew  into  our  net  hundreds 
of  people,  powerful  through  their  wealth  or  their 
political  influence,  who  would  never  have  taken  any 
interest  in  science  if  they  had  not  first  been  interested 
in  Agassiz.  And  these  men  were  the  men  who  gave 
us  the  money  we  needed  for  the  extension  of  scientific 
knowledge  and  the  promotion  of  scientific  discovery. 


86  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

Agassiz  is  a  great  scientific  intelligence ;  but  he  is 
even  greater,  considered  as  an  immense  scientific 
force." 

The  extraordinary  influence  which  Agassiz  exerted 
over  assemblages  of  men  who  had  small  perception  of 
the  scope  of  his  thinking  was  due  to  a  general  impres- 
sion of  his  disinterestedness,  as  well  as  to  his  magnetic 
personality.  On  one  occasion,  when  his  Museum  was 
in  need  of  money  for  a  purely  scientific  purpose,  he 
invited  the  members  of  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of 
Massachusetts  to  visit  it,  with  the  design  of  inducing 
them  to  vote  the  sum  he  required.  After  a  short  per- 
suasive address,  delivered  in  the  hall  of  the  Museum, 
he  led  them  over  the  building,  pointing  out  the  great 
things  that  had  been  achieved,  and  the  still  greater 
things  that  were  to  follow  if  his  plan  were  carried  out. 
In  ascending  the  stairs  I  happened  to  overhear  two 
shrewd  legislators,  evidently  farmers,  who  were  con- 
sidering the  propriety  of  giving  the  proposed  legisla- 
tive aid.  "  I  don't  know  much,"  said  one,  "  about  the 
value  of  this  Museum  as  a  means  of  education,  but 
of  one  thing  I  am  certain,  —  that  if  we  give  Agassiz 
the  money  he  wants,  he  will  not  make  a  dollar  by 
it.  That's  in  his  favor."  The  appropriation  was 
made  a  day  or  two  after,  though  it  was  generally 
considered  that  no  other  man  could  have  wrung  the 
sum  from  the  reluctant  hands  of  that  economical 
Legislature. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  now  to  affirm  that  Agassiz 
did   not   win  tliis   distinction  of  being  the  greatest 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  87 

scientific  force  of  the  country  by  any  of  the  various 
arts  of  insincerity  and  indirection.  Of  no  man  could 
it  be  said  with  more  truth  that  his  behavior  was  always 
the  expression  of  his  nature.  The  naturalness  of  his 
"  good  manners  "  constituted  their  charm.  He  was 
what  Dryden  calls  one  of  "  God  Almighty's  gentle- 
men," —  a  gentleman  inborn  and  inbred ;  a  gentleman 
who  had  no  need  of  being  trained  artificially  in  the 
rules  of  politeness,  because  in  him  the  gentleman  was 
but  one  expression  of  the  large  individuality  of  the 
man.  So  little  was  there  of  varnish  in  his  manners, 
so  little  of  the  restraint  on  sensibility  which  we  are 
accustomed  to  consider  as  the  perfection  of  good- 
breeding,  that  he  did  not  hesitate  to  indulge  in  occa- 
sional outbreaks  of  intellectual  and  moral  wrath  which 
coxcombs  might  consider  decidedly  improper  and  un- 
genteel.  Indeed,  when  anything  which  he  deemed  of 
vital  moment  was  up  for  discussion,  his  speech  was 
as  spontaneous  as  that  of  a  generous,  warm-hearted, 
ingenuous,  impetuous  boy ;  and  yet  the  finest  gentle- 
men of  his  time  admitted  that  he  generally  excelled 
them  all  in  his  instinctive  conformity  to  that  higher 
law  of  good-breeding  which  regulates  the  intercourse 
of  mind  with  mind.  He  was  the  recognized  head,  the 
chairman,  of  a  peculiar  Boston  club,  admission  to 
which  depended  rather  on  antipathy  than  sympathy, 
as  regards  the  character  and  pursuits  of  its  members. 
It  was  ingeniously  supposed  that  persons  who  looked 
on  all  questions  of  science,  theology,  and  literature 
from   different  points   of    view   would  be   the   very 


88  RECOLLECTIONS  OE  AGASSIZ. 

persons  who  would  most  enjoy  one  another's  company 
once  a  month  at  a  dinner-table.  Intellectual  anarchy 
was  proclaimed  as  the  fundamental  principle  of  this 
new  organization,  or  rather  disorganization  ;  no  man 
could  be  voted  in  who  had  not  shown  by  his  works 
his  disagreement  with  those  who  were  to  be  associated 
with  him ;  and  the  result  was,  of  course,  the  most 
tolerant  and  delightful  of  social  meetings.  Societies 
based  on  mutual  admiration  had  been  tried,  and  they 
had  failed ;  here  was  a  society  based  on  mutual  repul- 
sion, and  it  was  a  success  from  the  start.  The  two 
extremes  were  Agassiz  the  naturalist  and  Emerson 
the  transcendentalist ;  and  they  were  the  first  to  be- 
come intimate  friends,  —  nothing  could  exceed  the 
admiration  of  Agassiz  for  Emerson's  intellectual  and 
personal  character.  The  other  members  agreed  to 
disagree  after  a  similar  charming  fashion,  and  the 
contact  and  collision  of  so  many  discordant  minds 
produced  a  constant  succession  of  electric  sparks  both 
of  thought  and  wit.  Probably  not  even  the  club  of 
which  Johnson,  Burke,  Reynolds,  Garrick,  and  Gold- 
smith were  members  brought  so  many  forcible  indi- 
viduals into  such  good-natured  opposition,  or  afforded 
a  fairer  field  for  the  display  of  varied  talents  and 
accomplishments.  When  they  were  all  seated  at  one 
board,  and  the  frolic  hostilities  of  opinion  broke  out 
in  the  free  play  of  wit  and  argument,  of  pointed  asser- 
tion and  prompt  retort,  the  effect  was  singularly  exhila- 
rating. Indeed,  there  is  no  justification  for  a  long  din- 
ner where  the  attraction  is  simply  in  the  succession 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  89 

of  choice  dishes  and  the  variety  of  rare  wines.  In 
all  really  good  dinners  the  brain  and  heart  are  more 
active  than  the  palate  and  the  stomach.  But  dur- 
ing the  long  period  that  Agassiz  presided  over  the 
association  it  may  be  said  that  though  he  did  not  con- 
tribute the  most  sparkling  sayings,  he  was  still  the 
informing  and  inspiring  life  of  the  club.  He  radiated 
his  vital  courtesy  and  cheer  through  the  whole  assem- 
bly of  notables,  fused  them  into  a  compact  body  of 
friends,  and  was  most  warmly  acknowledged  as  their 
natural  head  by  those  members  who  were  specially 
distinguished  for  their  conversational  brilliancy  and 
charm.  Agassiz  himself  prized  the  club  above  all 
others,  because  it  brought  him  once  a  month  into 
intimate  relations  with  persons  who  were  not  particu- 
larly interested  in  the  subjects  which  absorbed  his 
own  intellect  and  tastes.  He  delighted  in  hearing 
and  in  replying  to  objections  to  his  scientific  convic- 
tions made  by  persons  who  approached  the  deep  ques- 
tions which  the  advance  of  geology  and  zoology  had 
raised,  from  points  of  view  opposite  to  his  own.  It  is 
said  that  he  was  somewhat  irritable  and  impatient  in 
discussing  his  theories  with  naturalists  and  physicists ; 
but  he  certainly  exhibited  neither  irritability  nor  im- 
patience in  discussing  the  same  theories  with  theo- 
logians, metaphysicians,  and  men  of  letters ;  and  he 
was  always  delighted  to  meet  on  neutral  ground  op- 
ponents who  did  not  pretend  to  have  the  knowledge 
which  would  qualify  them  to  contest  his  conclusions 
so  far  as  they  were  derived  from  the  special  facts  of 


90  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

his  own  science.  He  has  been  charged  with  arrogance 
and  self-assertion,  but  he  never  showed  a  trace  of 
these  qualities  in  his  familiar  intercourse  with  the 
members  of  this  club.  His  associates  in  that  society 
remember  him  not  only  with  respect  but  with  love. 
Ask  Holmes,  Lowell,  Cabot,  Hoar,  Hedge,  Norton, 
—  and,  could  we  question  the  dead,  ask  Sumner,  An- 
drew, Motley,  Hawthorne,  Longfellow,  Peircc,  Dana, 
Emerson,  —  what  they  think  of  Agassiz,  and  the 
response  would  surely  be  one  of  affection  for  the  won- 
derful creature  who  combined  such  endless  fertility 
of  generalized  knowledge  with  such  unbounded  geni- 
ality of  nature.  It  would  almost  seem  that  there 
never  existed  a  distinguished  man  who  called  forth  so 
much  love  from  a  wide  variety  of  distinguished  men, 
whose  love  carried  with  it  so  much  implied  respect. 
Indeed,  everybody  who  was  honored  by  the  friendship 
of  Agassiz  feels  honored  in  the  memory  of  it. 

The  "  recollections "  which  any  of  his  acquaint- 
ances can  record  of  such  a  noble  specimen  of  physical, 
intellectual,  and  moral  manhood  must  be  more  or 
less  disappointing ;  for  the  general  impression  left 
on  the  minds  of  all  who  knew  him  can  hardly  be 
expressed  in  details  of  his  life  and  conversation. 
"  That  dear  Agassiz  "  was  the  judgment  passed  upon 
him  by  a  French  custodian  of  scientific  collections, 
who  had  frequent  opportunities  to  know  how  insati- 
able was  the  greed  for  knowledge  which  character- 
ized this  greatest  of  modern  naturalists ;  and  "  that 
dear  Agassiz "  expresses  the  feeling  which   is  still 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  91 

uppermost  in  the  hearts   of    all   American  friends 
who  survive  him. 

And,  first,  no  justice  can  be  done  to  Agassiz  which 
docs  not  recognize  the  deep  religiousness  of  his  nature. 
In  his  youth  and  early  manhood  he  was  a  pronounced 
materialist.  It  is  said  of  the  ordinary  New  England 
divinity  student  that  at  a  certain  time  in  his  life  he 
"  experiences  "  religion.  At  a  corresponding  period 
in  his  purely  scientific  career  Agassiz  may  be  said 
to  have  "  experienced "  irreligion.  The  same  ardor 
of  nature  which  made  him  a  resolute  scientist  made 
him,  at  least  on  the  negative  side,  a  resolute  atheist. 
And  he  was  perfectly  honest  in  his  disbelief.  It  is 
difficult  to  fix  the  date  when  he  became  a  theist.  One 
thing  however  is  certain,  that  he  passed  into  all  the 
mental  and  moral  moods  which  lead  many  modern 
scientists  to  ignore  or  deny  the  existence  of  God,  and 
to  rest  satisfied  in  the  general  conception  of  "  Law," 
without  seeing  or  feeling  any  need  of  a  Law-giver. 
I  have  said  that  he  passed  into  these  moods,  thor- 
oughly "  experienced "  them,  and  felt  as  well  as 
understood  all  the  logic  and  all  the  facts  on  which 
such  "  Positivism "  is  founded.  But  he  gradually 
passed  out  of  this  state  as  he  came  nearer  and 
nearer,  as  an  investigator,  to  the  inmost  meaning 
of  Nature.  He  ended,  much  to  the  contempt  and  dis- 
gust of  many  of  his  most  distinguished  scientific 
contemporaries,  in  a  belief  in  God  more  intense  than 
that  professed  by  the  majority  of  theologians.  His 
experience  of  religion  was  even  more  marked  than 


92  RECOLLECTIONS  OP  AGASSIZ. 

his  previous  experience  of  irreligion,  and  it  carried 
with  it  all  the  force  of  his  nature.  Having  gone 
through  all  the  dreary  and  dogmatic  scepticism  in 
which  most  men  of  science  were  contented  to  re- 
main, he  amazed  his  own  class  of  scientists,  in  his 
"  Essay  on  Classification,"  by  urging  them  to  aban- 
don their  neutral  or  hostile  attitude  toward  natural 
theology,  and  to  look  on  the  various  divisions  and 
classes  of  Nature  as  the  embodiment  of  thoughts 
previously  existing  in  a  divine  creative  mind.  The 
scorn  with  which  this  essay  was  received  in  some 
quarters  was  unspeakable.  Its  author  lost  caste 
among  many  of  the  foremost  naturalists  of  France, 
Germany,  and  England.  He  was,  indeed,  accused  of 
shamming  religion  in  order  to  induce  the  Puritans 
of  America  to  give  him  money  to  carry  out  his  sci- 
entific schemes.  It  was  held  to  be  disgraceful  that 
a  great  naturalist  who  had  done  so  much  to  extend 
the  limits  of  the  "  Knowable "  should  forfeit  his  in- 
tellectual rank  by  ignominiously  giving  in  to  the 
claims  of  the  priests,  and  asserting  that  the  "  Un- 
knowable "  was  a  personal  and  infinite  God,  "  known  " 
more  or  less  to  the  student  who  explores  scientifi- 
cally the  facts  of  Nature  with  a  mind  untrammelled 
by  either  atheistic  or  theistic  prejudices  and  pre- 
conceptions. 

The  European  scientists  were  strangely  at  fault 
in  considering  the  theism  of  Agassiz  as  at  all  influ- 
enced by  the  class  that  they  contemptuously  desig- 
nated as  "  the  priests."    His  education  as  a  scientist 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  93 

was  entirely  independent  of  all  the  influences  which 
surround  the  childhood,  youth,  and  early  manhood 
of  most  English  and  American  men  of  science.  He 
never  felt  the  passions  or  appreciated  the  theories 
of  any  of  the  theological  systems  from  the  dictation  of 
which  they  may  pride  themselves  on  being  emanci- 
pated. He  always  seemed  to  me  strangely  ignorant 
of  the  doctrines  which  divided  the  various  sects  and 
churches  of  Christendom,  or  at  least  strangely  indif- 
ferent to  them.  If  he  was  of  any  sect,  my  impression 
is  that  he  inclined  to  the  sect  of  Unitarians ;  but  I 
would  not  assert  even  that.  In  reading  his  "  Essay 
on  Classification"  I  was  reminded  of  the  ideas  of 
law  presented  in  the  first  book  of  Hooker's  "  Eccle- 
siastical Polity,"  and  I  sent  the  volume  to  him.  He 
much  admired  the  first  book,  but  took  small  interest 
in  what  followed;  and  of  Hooker's  position  as  the 
greatest  thinker  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  as 
one  of  the  leading  minds  in  the  Elizabethan  period 
of  English  literature,  he  knew  little  or  nothing.  He 
was,  in  fact,  a  naturalist  pure  and  simple,  and  he 
rose  into  supernatural  sm  in  the  most  natural  way. 

Indeed,  far  from  compromising  the  cause  of  science 
in  order  to  win  the  good-will  of  theologians,  he  gave 
the  theologians  a  great  shock  by  early  advancing 
the  theory  that  mankind  had  no  common  ancestor, 
but  that  its  various  races  were  derived  from  separate 
originals.  He  did  not  much  care  about  names ;  he 
had  no  objection  to  the  name  Adam  or  the  name 
Eve,  but  he  believed  in  numerous  Adams  and  numer- 


94  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

ous  Eves.  A  storm  of  theological  opposition  was 
raised  against  him  in  New  England  on  account  of 
this  heresy ;  and  I  remember  asking  him,  before  the 
clatter  had  subsided,  how  he  contrived  to  preserve 
his  scientific  independence  while  living  in  a  commu- 
nity which  was  generally  hostile  to  all  opinions  that 
clashed  violently  with  its  theological,  philanthropic, 
and  political  beliefs  and  passions.  "  Why,"  he  an- 
swered, "  the  reason  is  plain :  I  never  was  a  quarter 
of  a  dollar  ahead  in  the  world,  and  I  never  expect 
to  be.  When  a  man  of  science  wants  money  for 
himself,  he  may  be  compelled  to  subordinate  science 
to  popular  opinion ;  when  he  wants  money  simply 
for  the  advancement  of  science,  he  gets  it  somehow, 
because  it  is  known  that  not  a  cent  sticks  in  his  own 
pocket."  And  he  added,  in  reference  to  his  own 
theory :  "  You  know  that  my  belief  in  the  essential 
unity  of  the  races  of  mankind  is  not  based  on  their 
physical  descent  from  a  common  ancestor,  but  on 
the  higher  ideal  ground  of  a  plan  existing  in  the 
Divine  Mind,  discriminating  man  from  every  other 
class  of  animals,  yet  carried  out  according  to  the 
laws  which  regulate  the  geographical  distribution  of 
both  men  and  animals  on  this  planet.  Before  this 
scientific  discussion  is  carried  far,  many  of  my  theo- 
logical opponents  will  find  that  the  Divine  plan  in 
the  creation  of  njian  is  of  mucli  more  importance 
than  any  question  of  his  physical  descent,  or  the 
agreement  or  disagreement  of  my  theory  with  their 
interpretations   of  the  first  chapter   of   Genesis.     I 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSI Z.  95 

approach  the  whole  question  from  a  standpoint  en- 
tirely different  from  theirs,  as  I  do  every  other  ques- 
tion where  science  comes  into  collision  with  popular 
belief.  And,  mind  you,  my  method  of  arriving  at 
the  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Existence  is  a  purely  sci- 
entific method ;  and  you  will  find,  perhaps  before 
you  die,  that  this  ostentatious  denial  or  ignoring  of 
God,  common  among  naturalists  whom  I  warmly 
esteem,  and  whose  additions  to  natural  liistory  I  am 
the  most  ready  to  acknowledge,  will  end  in  making 
the  science  itself  sterile.  The  Positive  system,  under 
its  many  names  and  modifications,  will  fail  at  last 
in  generating  the  enthusiasm  for  new  discoveries. 
When  the  present  generation  of  observers  has  passed 
away,  the  new  generation  will  be  more  zealous  in 
establishing  their  dogmas  of  atheism  than  any  of 
their  theological  opponents  will  be  in  defending  their 
superstitious  dogmas  founded  on  the  beliefs  of  past 
ages.  Their  disbelief  might  be  of  small  account  if 
it  were  not  certain  to  interfere  with  their  original 
researches.  But  I  fear  science  will  suffer  in  the 
hands  of  its  seeming  devotees.  They  will  become 
controversialists  instead  of  being  investigators.  Now, 
the  progress  of  science  depends  on  the  ever-recurring 
numbers  A  noble  young  men  who  will  be  attracted  to 
science  by  the  hope  of  advancing  it  by  new  discover- 
ies, and  the  unselfishness  with  which  they  enter  on 
this  course  must  be  as  complete  as  that  which  we 
know  has  animated.  Christian  missionaries.  If  on  the 
threshold  of  their  career  they  are  supplied  with  suf- 


96  KECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

ficient  scientific  facts  and  theories  td  induce  them  to 
engage  in  a  free  fight  with  the  persons  around  tliein 
who  are  not  scientifically  enlightened,  they  will  spend 
in  the  popularizing  of  current  scientific  hypotheses 
the  energies  which  should  be  sacredly  devoted  to 
the  increase  of  scientific  facts.  And  then  I  will 
frankly  tell  you  that  my  experience  in  prolonged 
scientific  investigations  convinces  me  that  a  belief 
in  God  —  a  God  who  is  behind  and  within  the  chaos 
of  ungeneralized  facts  beyond  tlie  present  vanishing- 
points  of  human  l?;nowledge  —  adds  a  wonderful  stim- 
ulus to  the  man  who  attempts  to  penetrate  into  the 
region  of  the  unknown.  For  myself,  I  may  say  that 
I  now  never  make  the  preparations  for  penetrating 
into  some  small  province  of  Nature  hitherto  undis- 
covered, without  breathing  a  prayer  to  the  Being 
who  hides  His  secrets  from  me  only  to  allure  me  gra- 
ciously on  to  the  unfolding  of  them.  I  sometimes 
hear  preachers  speak  of  the  sad  condition  of  men 
who  live  without  God  in  the  world;  but  a  scientist 
who  lives  without  God  in  the  world  seems  to  me 
worse  off  than  ordinary  men." 

Of  course  I  do  not  pretend  to  give  the  exact  words 
of  Agassiz  in  this  report.  I  am  only  sure  as  to  the 
playful  remark  about  his  never  having  a  quarter  of 
a  dollar  ahead  in  the  world,  and  of  the  solemn  and 
somewhat  reserved  way  in  which  he  spoke  of  the 
involuntary  prayer  which  ever  accompanied  his  in- 
vestigations into  the  Unknown.  The  rest  embodies 
his  general   opinions,  often  expressed,  —  that  every 


RECOLLECTIONS  OE  AGASSIZ.  97 

rounded  theory  of  the  universe  must  be  imperfect ; 
that  the  Divine  secret  still  remains  undiscovered ; 
and  that  scientists  would  be  more  profitably  em- 
ployed in  extending  the  boundaries  of  positive  sci- 
ence than  in  propounding  any  dogmatic  system 
miscalled  "  positive  philosophy."  Of  one  thing  I  am 
sure,  —  he  had  a  deep  conviction,  as  strong  as  that 
of  Augustine  or  Bernard  or  Luther  or  Edwards  or 
Wesley  or  Channing,  that  there  were  means  of  com- 
munication between  the  Divine  and  the  human  mind. 
He  had  an  inward  experience  of  this  mystical  fact, — 
a  fact  which  lies  at  the  centre  of  all  religion, — 
almost  as  strong  as  that  which  we  freely  accord 
to  the  experience  of  men  of  religious  genius.  This 
"familiar  grasp  of  things  Divine"  was  not  one  of 
the  least  of  the  fascinations  of  Agassiz ;  and  he 
strenuously  insisted  that  the  human  mind,  in  what- 
ever direction  of  art,  science,  or  literature  it  was 
exercised,  would  starve  and  dwindle  on  its  own  re- 
sources alone.  It  must,  he  declared,  be  sustained 
and  enriched  by  some  Divine  Power  above  it  if  it 
desired  to  be  continuously  powerful ;  it  must  be  open 
to  inspiration  from  the  Creator  of  the  world  if  it 
would  gather  strength  for  the  difficult  task  of  inves- 
tigating it. 

He  thus  proved  that  he  possessed,  in  addition  to 
the  ordinary  equipment  of  the  accomplished  man  of 
science,  that  subtile  spiritual  essence  which  is  soul. 
Theologically  speaking,  all  of  us  have  souls,  as  well 
as  bodies  and  understandings;  but  in  the  common 

7 


98  RECOLLECTIONS  OE  AGASSIZ. 

experience  of  life  soul  may  be  said  to  be  a  rare,  an 
exceptional  quality  of  human  beings.  It  comes  out 
in  flashes  here  and  there ;  but  the  majority  of  men, 
as  they  ordinarily  meet  their  fellows,  indicate  but 
slight  j)ossession  of  it.  Hence  the  justification  of  the 
seeming  profanity  of  the  passionate  artist,  who  was 
trying  to  convince  a  dull  man  of  culture  that  this 
mysterious  quality  was  evident  in  the  picture  he  was 
showing  him.  "  I  am  not  sure,"  he  at  last  exclaimed, 
as  he  found  his  exposition  produced  no  effect,  —  "I 

am  not  sure  that  you  have  any  soul ;  but,  by ,  I 

know  that  /  have ! "  Certainly  all  who  came  into 
contact  with  Agassiz  were  made  aware  that  he  had  a 
soul,  whether  or  not  they  had  one.  Indeed,  it  flamed 
out  in  every  expression  of  his  magnificent  nature, 
was  evident  in  every  statement  of  fact  or  affirmation 
of  principle,  in  the  simplest  as  well  as  the  greatest 
things  conveying  the  impression  of  intense,  abun- 
dant —  even  superabundant  —  spiritual  life. 

A  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  was  of 
course  natural  to  a  man  who  had  such  an  inward, 
vehement  experience  of  its  reality  and  force.  "To 
execute  great  things,"  says  Yauvenargues,  "  a  man 
must  live  as  though  he  had  never  to  die."  Agassiz 
lived  in  this  way.  He  must  have  been  surprised  when 
he  received  the  first  intimation,  about  the  age  of  fifty- 
five,  that  he  was  mortal.  His  physical  health  was  so 
great,  that  when  he  was  superintending  the  arrange- 
ment and  publication  of  one  of  his  early  works,  he 
labored  fur  a  couple  of  months  steadily  at  his  desk  at 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  99 

the  rate  of  sixteen  or  eighteen  hours  a  day,  taking  no 
exercise ;  and  when  the  delightful  task  was  completed 
he  started  on  an  excursion  among  the  Alps,  which 
exacted  as  much  labor  from  his  limbs  as  the  months 
preceding  it  had  exacted  from  his  brain.  In  fact  he 
seemed,  up  to  the  period  of  his  first  attack  of  disease, 
utterly  insensible  to  bodily  as  to  mental  fatigue.  He 
never  had  an  hour  in  his  life  when  he  was  not  pleas- 
antly occupied ;  and  he  innocently  wondered,  when  the 
people  he  met  in  society  sometimes  complained  of  be- 
ing bored  with  life.  Every  contrivance  to  kill  time  ap- 
peared to  him  the  funniest  of  all  jokes.  "  Time  !  "  he 
was  wont  to  exclaim ;  "  my  only  trouble  is  that  I  have 
not  enough  time  for  my  work.  I  cannot  understand 
why  anybody  should  be  idle ;  much  less  can  I  under- 
stand why  anybody  should  be  oppressed  by  having 
time  hang  on  his  hands.  There  is  never  a  moment, 
except  when  I  am  asleep,  that  I  am  not  joyfully  occu- 
pied. Please  give  to  me  the  hours  which  you  say  are 
a  bore  to  you,  and  I  will  receive  them  as  the  most 
precious  of  presents.  For  my  part,  I  wish  the  day 
would  never  come  to  an  end."  His  recreations  were 
only  variations  in  his  occupations.  He  told  me  that 
he  had  never  known  a  dull  hour  in  his  whole  life. 
He  had  many  vexations  in  the  course  of  his  career, 
but  his  vexations  were  only  new  stimulants  to  his 
tireless  activity.  His  experience  of  life  was  so  intense 
and  joyous  that  he  hardly  admitted  the  thought  that 
he  was  not  to  live  forever.  Death,  physical  death, 
misht  alter  his  mode  of  activitv.     He  admitted  that 


100  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

this  accident  must  happen  to  him  at  some  time  or  an- 
other, but  his  faith  in  the  continuousness  of  his  indi- 
vidual life  never  wavered.  To  be  ten  minutes  in  his 
company  was  to  obtain  the  strongest  argument  for  the 
immortality  of  the  soul.  The  grandeur  of  his  scien- 
tific schemes,  especially  the  scheme  of  completing  his 
Museum  so  that  it  should  visibly  represent  the  com- 
prehensive plan  existing  in  his  ever-dilating  mind, 
impressed  you  with  the  feeling  that  the  physical  man 
himself  would  "  never  say  die "  to  the  most  impor- 
tunate command  of  that  grim  skeleton  who  huddles 
into  a  common  grave  the  philosopher  whose  brain  is 
glowing  with  unrealized  conceptions,  and  the  hus- 
bandman who  has  only  just  relaxed  his  grasp  on  the 
plough.  When  Goethe  heard  of  the  death  of  his 
mother,  he  wondered  why  a  woman  of  such  incessant 
mental  activity  should  have  "  consented  to  die."  Hun- 
dreds of  the  friends  of  Agassiz,  who  could  not  pretend 
to  have  a  tenth  part  of  his  marvellous  vitality,  must 
have  felt  a  similar  wonder  when  they  heard  of  his  de- 
parture from  earth.  No  two  ideas  seemed  more  in- 
compatible than  the  idea  of  Agassiz  and  the  idea  of 
death ;  for  that  grand  soul,  with  its  confident  and  ex- 
hilarating acti^•ity  exercised  on  large  designs  which 
could  be  completed  within  the  limits  of  no  mortal  life, 
appeared  to  carry  within  it  the  principle  of  deathless- 
ness ;  and  this  impression  was  strengthened  by  the 
fact  that  what  it  could  possibly  achieve  here  was  but 
a  small  part  of  the  vast  work  it  contemplated.  He 
once  told  me,  in  illustration  of  the  theory  that  the 


EECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  101 

mind  worked  during  even  a  dreamless  sleep,  that  on 
one  occasion,  after  toiling  on  a  problem  which  he  felt 
sure  a  few  hours  more  of  consecutive  thinking  would 
solve,  ho  was  compelled  by  physical  fatigue  to  go  to 
bed.  He  slept  for  some  seven  hours,  and  when  he 
awoke  he  found  the  answer  to  his  last  obstinate  ques- 
tioning of  Nature  clear  in  his  mind.  It  would  seem 
that  this  might  be  a  faint  type  of  the  unwearied  con- 
tinuousness  of  his  thinking  faculty  throughout  all  the 
long  sleep  of  death. 

It  is  well  known  that  Agassiz  held  to  the  doctrine  of 
the  immortality  of  the  souls  of  animals  as  well  as  to 
the  immortality  of  the  souls  of  men.  In  a  conversation 
I  had  with  him  a  number  of  years  ago,  he  attempted 
to  explain  to  me  his  conception  of  the  employments 
of  a  naturalist  in  the  next  stage  of  existence,  and 
of  the  unbounded  wealth  of  material  which  his  soul 
would  possess  in  observing  the  souls  of  the  objects  of 
his  pursuit.  To  the  proposition  that  animals  had  no 
souls  he  of  course  emphatically  dissented,  whenever 
it  was  brought  forward.  On  one  occasion,  when  the 
subject  was  up  for  discussion,  I  told  him  that  in  a  re- 
cent visit  to  the  country  I  had  obtained  confirmation 
of  his  theory  from  an  unexpected  quarter ;  for  I  had 
overheard  a  farmer,  who  was  goading  a  yoke  of  reluc- 
tant oxen  to  perform  an  impossible  task,  exhaust  all 
the  vocabulary  of  blasphemy  on  the  poor  beasts,  sing- 
ling out  not  their  bodies,  but  their  souls,  as  the  things 
he  specially  desired  to  consign  to  eternal  perdition ; 
and  that  he  was  as  particular  in  selecting  the  inward, 


102  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

unseen,  immaterial  essence  of  the  toiling  creatures 
for  profane  condemnation  as  he  would  have  been  in 
swearing  at  an  average  Christian  man.  "  Ah ! "  said 
Agassiz,  with  a  laugh,  "  that  reminds  me  how  stupid 
most  of  the  keepers  of  animals  are,  and  how  little  the 
fellows  know  of  the  minds  and  feelings  of  the  crea- 
tures they  oppress."  He  then  went  on  to  indicate 
that  his  theory  as  to  animals  having  souls  was  derived 
from  his  interior  knowledge  of  their  natures.  And 
indeed  his  sympathies  included  all  kinds  of  animals, 
as  they  included  all  kinds  of  men ;  and  he  was  repaid 
in  kind.  There  is  not,  I  think,  a  single  instance  of 
his  having  been  injured  by  any  serpent  or  beast  how- 
ever poisonous  or  ferocious,  though  much  of  his  life 
was  passed  in  the  company  of  animals.  It  is  asserted 
that  they  have  no  language  ;  but  he  found  no  difficulty 
in  conversing  with  them,  and  they  seemed  to  under- 
stand him  very  well,  adapted  as  his  modes  of  commu- 
liicating  Avith  them  were  to  their  different  natures. 
There  probably  never  was  a  naturalist  who  combined 
such  a  knowledge  of  their  physical  organization  with 
such  a  penetrating  glance  into  what  he  called  their 
souls.  He  was,  in  the  aesthetics  of  zoology,  the  dra- 
matist of  the  animal  kingdom,  as  Shakspeare  was  the 
dramatist  of  the  human  race.  Whether  he  had  to  do 
with  a  jelly-fish  or  a  whale  or  an  elephant,  he  knew 
each  of  them,  as  Shakspeare  knew  the  varieties  of  hu- 
man kind,  —  from  "the  heart  outward,  and  not  from 
the  flesh  inward."  It  was  curious  to  notice  his  be- 
havior in  presence  of  the  domesticated  animals.     The 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  103 

neigli  of  a  horse  to  him  was  a  more  friendly  neigh 
than  any  ever  heard  by  a  hostler  or  a  jockey.  He 
carried  serpents  in  his  hat  and  in  his  pockets  with  a 
grand  unconcern,  and  dropped  them  sometimes  even 
in  his  bed-room,  so  that  his  wife  was  frequently 
troubled  by  finding  them  coiled  up  in  her  boots. 
"  Beauty,"  says  the  poet,  "  is  its  own  excuse  for  be- 
ing." Agassi z  went  beyond  this  tolerant  maxim,  to 
the  extent  of  affirming  that  deformity  has  its  own 
excuse  for  being.  The  fact  that  any  animal  existed- 
was  with  him  a  justification  of  its  existence ;  and  af- 
ter conversing  with  it,  and  penetrating  to  its  interior 
nature,  he  treated  it  as  Shakspeare  treated  Dogberry 
or  Ancient  Pistol  or  Mrs.  Quickly,  or  any  of  the  other 
queer  blood-relations  connected  with  him  through  a 
common  descent  from  Adam.  As  there  was  no  form 
of  human  existence  which  was  too  low  to  be  beneath 
the  humane  sympathies  of  Shakspeare,  so  there  was 
no  kind  of  animal  existence  which  was  too  low  to  en- 
gage the  sympathies  of  Agassiz.  And  the  most  evil 
members  of  the  animal  kingdom  had  no  malignant 
feeling  toward  him ;  indeed,  they  cheerfully  consented 
to  let  him  kill  them,  knowing  that  by  such  a  submis- 
sion to  his  will  they  were  practically  elected  as  repre- 
sentatives of  their  species  in  the  grand  legislative 
assembly  of  the  Animal  Kingdom  gathered  in  the 
great  hall  of  the  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology, 
under  the  literal  "  Speakership  "  of  Agassiz ;  that  is, 
under  the  man  who  was  alone  capable  of  being  the 
interpreter  of  their  language,  so  that  its  signs  could 


104  RECOLLECTIONS  OE  AGASSIZ. 

be  clearly  understood  by  the  human  race,  from  which 
they  were  divided  by  peculiarities  of  organization  and 
of  soul.  One  can  almost  conceive  of  these  martyrs  of 
the  animal  kingdom  as  rejoicing  while  enduring  the 
death  which  insured  to  the  species  to  which  they  be- 
longed an  intelligent  recognition  of  their  merits  from 
the  members  of  the  superior  race,  to  whom  they  were 
thus  introduced  through  his  friendly  agency.  When- 
ever I  look  at  them,  preserved  so  carefully  in  their 
glass  jars  filled  with  alcohol,  I  for  one  am  delighted 
to  find  them  in  such  excellent  spirits ! 

But  Agassiz  was  not  merely  an  accurate  scientific 
observer  in  the  realm  of  zoology  ;  he  was  a  powerful 
scientific  thinker,  and  from  his  youth  was  intensely 
interested  in  the  great  question  of  classification.  He 
studied  all  the  various  systems  of  classification  with 
intense  interest,  and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
divisions  of  the  animal  kingdom  according  to  type, 
class,  order,  family,  genus,  and  species  were  not 
devices  of  the  human  understanding  to  classify  its 
knowledge,  but  corresponded  to  ideas  in  the  Divine 
Mind  in  His  plan  of  creation ;  and  that  this  arrange- 
ment in  Nature  was  gradually  discovered  by  science, 
not  invented  by  it.  He  naturally  desired  to  confer 
with  the  champions  of  all  systems ;  and  in  his  early 
manhood,  after  mastering  the  theory  of  Cuvier,  he 
hastened  to  Germany  to  consult  with  Oken,  the  tran- 
scendentalist  in  zoological  classification.  "  After  I 
had  delivered  to  him  my  letter  of  introduction,"  he 
once  said  to  me,  "  Oken  asked  me  to  dine  with  him, 


KJECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  105 

and  you  may  suppose  with  what  joy  I  accepted  the 
invitation.  The  dinner  consisted  only  of  potatoes, 
boiled  and  roasted ;  but  it  was  the  best  dinner  I  ever 
ate,  for  there  was  Oken.  He  unfolded  to  me,  during 
the  hours  of  a  long  afternoon,  the  principles  of  his 
system  more  completely  than  I  could  have  obtained 
them  from  his  books.  There  never  was  such  a  feast ! 
never  before  were  such  potatoes  grown  on  this  planet ! 
for  the  mind  of  the  man  seemed  to  enter  into  what 
we  ate  sociably  together,  and  I  devoured  his  intellect 
while  munching  his  potatoes.  I  repeat  it  —  1  never 
ate  such  a  dinner  before  or  since." 

In  connection  with  his  studies  on  the  true  method 
of  classifying  animals,  Agassiz  was  passionately  inter- 
ested in  their  geographical  distribution.  "  If  I  live," 
he  once  exclaimed,  "  I  hope  to  be  able  to  write  a  good 
book  on  that  subject.  It  is  of  immense  importance, 
having  vital  relations  to  other  branches  of  investiga- 
tion now  pursued  by  some  of  the  best  minds  of  our 
time.  My  convictions  are  almost  settled  on  this 
matter.  I  think  that  the  area  over  which  animals 
roam  is  determined  by  their  constitution  and  habits. 
Indeed,  I  am  almost  willing  to  assert  that  when  God 
gave  them  legs  He  made  the  gift  under  the  inexorable 
condition  that  they  should  never  run  away." 

The  theories  of  Agassiz,  as  a  thinker,  are  now  the 
subject  of  vehement  controversy  among  men  of  sci- 
ence. It  is,  however,  my  general  impression  that  the 
facts  necessary  to  place  the  Darwinian  theory  on  the 
solid  foundation  of  a  law  of  Nature  are  yet  un  disco v- 


106  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

ered ;  and  it  was  this  absence  of  facts  to  confirm  the 
most  captivating  of  theories  which  impelled  Agassiz 
to  his  passionate  opposition,  his  "  noble  rage,"  when- 
ever the  theory  was  mentioned.  Indeed,  that  theory 
was  the  hSte  noire  of  his  later  scientific  life.  It 
diverted  him  from  his  own  selected  paths  of  investi- 
gation into  the  turmoil  of  controversy,  so  that  his 
scientific  debates  were  carried  on  at  the  expense  of 
limiting  his  scientific  discoveries.  He  was  conscious 
of  it  himself,  for  the  last  of  his  published  essays 
records  his  belief  that  science  suffers  by  every  diver- 
sion of  the  energies  of  scientists  which  tends  to 
substitute  premature  theorizing  for  continuous  inves- 
tigating. But  in  all  his  contests  he  never  undervalued 
the  positive  contributions  that  any  of  his  opponents 
had  made  to  zoology ;  and  his  admiration  of  Darwin 
was  always  warmly  expressed,  checked  only  by  dis- 
agreement with  him  on  theoretical  grounds.  Owen 
was  another  eminent  Englishman  whose  fame  he  ex- 
tended in  the  United  States  by  enthusiastically  point- 
ing out  to  all  questioners  the  grounds  of  his  admiration 
of  that  great  zoologist ;  and  when  Owen  was  up  for 
exposition  or  discussion,  it  was  only  by  some  side  re- 
mark that  his  auditors  learned  that  Owen  and  Agassiz 
were  antagonists  on  certain  disputed  questions.  He 
loved  his  scientific  enemies  as  few  Christians  have 
grace  enough  to  love  their  personal  enemies ;  but  he 
always  demanded  that  they  should  be  men  who  were 
practical  investigators  of  the  facts  of  zoology.  For 
amateurs  who  took  the  facts   at  second  hand,  and 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  107 

built  up  ingenious  systems  by  combining  the  discov- 
eries of  many  specialists  in  science,  he  had  an  almost 
irrational  indifference.  I  once  asked  him  what  he 
thought  of  an  attack  on  his  scientific  position  made 
by  an  accomplished  scholar  and  thinker,  who  had 
mastered  the  different  theories  put  forth  by  the  ac- 
knowledged representatives  of  his  science,  and  had 
decided  that  Agassiz  must  be  ranked  in  the  second  or 
third  class.  He  burst  into  a  roar  of  laughter,  treating 
what  I  considered  a  serious  attack  as  a  great  joke. 
"  Why,  just  think  of  it,"  he  exclaimed ;  "  he  under- 
takes to  fix  my  place  among  zoologists,  and  he  is  not 
himself  a  zoologist ! "  He  wondered  that  I  did  not 
join  in  the  laugh  at  what  he  deemed  the  funniest 
literary  incident  that  had  recently  occurred.  "  And," 
he  added,  "  don't  you  know  that  he  has  never  been  an 
observer  ?  " 

The  meaning  of  "  observation,"  in  his  mind,  differed 
strangely  from  the  common  use  of  the  word.  With 
him  it  meant  tlie  strenuous  exertion  of  all  the  facul- 
ties behind  the  eye,  as  well  as  the  assiduous  training 
of  the  eye  itself.  After  he  had  been  some  fifteen 
years  in  this  country,  I  asked  him  what  he  thought 
was  the  best  result  here  of  his  efforts  as  a  teacher  of 
science,  and  he  answered :  "  I  have  educated  five  ob- 
servers. One  of  them,  to  be  sure,  has  turned  out  to 
be  my  deadliest  personal  enemy  ;  but  I  still  affirm  that 
he  5s  a  good  observer,  and  that  is  the  best  compliment 
I  could  pay  him  were  he  my  dearest  friend." 

At  the  time  that  "  spiritualism  "  was  most  popular 


108  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

in  New  England  the  men  of  science  were  adjured  by 
intelligent  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  thought  they 
could  believe  the  testimony  of  their  eyes,  and  who 
thus  considered  themselves  to  be  "  observers,"  to  in- 
vestigate the  phenomena.  Agassiz  was  among  the 
foremost  of  the  scientists  who  stepped  forward  in  an- 
swer to  this  appeal ;  but  he  and  his  associates  could 
not  force  the  spiritualists  to  comply  with  any  of  the 
conditions  under  which  scientists  observe.  They 
were  constantly  taunted  for  not  investigating  the 
wonders  which  they  were  constantly  prevented  by  the 
wonder-workers  themselves  from  investigating  accord- 
ing to  the  accredited  methods  of  science.  Agassiz 
during  this  controversy  happened  to  meet  Home,  the 
chief  magician  of  the  sect,  in  a  railway  car.  "  It  is 
sad,  Mr.  Agassiz,"  said  Home,  "  that  the  prejudices  of 
you  men  of  science  interpose  to  prevent  the  advance- 
ment of  science,  owing  to  the  fact  that  you  refuse  to 
investigate  the  phenomena  which  are  nightly  presented 
to  all  unprejudiced  observers."  "  Mr.  Home,"  was  the 
reply,  "  I  never  refuse  to  investigate  anything  which 
promises  to  advance  science ;  and  nothing  will  give 
me  more  delight  than  to  investigate  the  marvels 
which  occur,  as  you  say,  at  your  meetings."  "  Well, 
then,"  replied  Home,  "  come  this  very  night  and  wit- 
ness the  appearance  of  the  spirit  hand."  "  Nothing 
will  give  me  more  pleasure,"  answered  Agassiz,  "  than 
to  be  one  of  the  selected  guests  around  the  table  where 
the  spirit  hand  appears.  My  opinion  is  that  it  is  a 
physical  hand,  with  a  little  phosphorus  rubbed  over  it ; 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  109 

but  I  am  open  to  conviction.  I  am  a  little  skilled  in 
the  use  of  weapons,  and  all  I  ask  is  that  I  shall  have 
the  privilege  of  putting  my  stiletto  through  it.  If  the 
hand  is  a  spirit  hand,  no  harm  will  occur  ;  if  it  is  a 
human  hand,  I  feel  confident  in  my  power  to  transfix 
it  on  the  table,  much  to  the  discomfort  of  its  posses- 
sor." Home  declined  the  test.  Such  a  want  of  faith, 
he  said,  would  necessarily  prevent  the  spirit  hand 
from  appearing.  And,  indeed,  all  means  of  investiga- 
tion which  Agassiz  suggested  were  dismissed  as  not 
calculated  to  induce  the  spirits  to  communicate  with 
any  company  of  which  he  was  a  member. 

The  geniality  of  the  nature  of  Agassiz  compre- 
hended, as  I  have  said,  all  mankind,  and  all  the 
branches  of  the  animal  kingdom.  His  sympathies,  in 
the  full  meaning  of  Wordsworth's  lines  — 

"  Aloft  ascending  and  descending  down, 
Even  to  inferior  kinds," 

were  universal ;  but  added  to  this  was  a  personal 
affectionateness  to  his  mother,  his  wife,  his  children, 
and  his  particular  friends  which  it  was  beautiful  to 
witness.  His  fiftieth  birthday  was  celebrated  by  the 
Saturday  Club  with  a  special  dinner ;  and  notable 
poems  were  read  on  the  occasion  by  such  friends  as 
Lowell,  Holmes,  and  Longfellow.  Longfellow's  verses 
are  too  familiar  to  be  quoted  in  full,  but  every  reader 
will  remember  that  they  represent  Nature  as  taking 
the  boy  by  the  hand,  and  leading  him  irresistibly  on 
to  his  true  vocation  of  discovering  her  secrets,  which 
she  gladly  unfolded  to  the  favorite  she  had  chosen. 


110  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

There  were  toil  and  struggle  in  the  pursuit,  but  she 
still  lured  him  on  to  his  object,  and  — 

"  Whenever  the  way  seemed  long, 
And  his  heart  began  to  fail, 
She  would  sing  a  more  wonderful  song, 
Or  tell  a  more  marvellous  tale." 

And  at  last  came  the  crowning  stanza,  where  the 
natural  mother  mourns  over  the  seductions  of  the 
great  mother,  that  have  drawn  her  beloved  son  from 
the  fireside  where  she  wished  to  keep  him :  — 

"  And  the  mother  at  home  says,  '  Hark  I 
For  his  Voice  I  listen  and  yearn  ; 
It  is  growing  late  and  dark. 
And  my  boy  does  not  return.' " 

I  sat  near  Agassiz  at  the  table,  and  watched  the  effect 
of  the  poem  as  read  in  the  quiet,  subdued  tones  of 
Longfellow's  voice.  His  head  was  bent  modestly 
down,  with  a  musing  smile  on  his  lips,  as  he  recalled 
the  scenes  of  his  childhood  and  youth ;  but  when 
came  the  allusion  to  his  mother,  it  was  curious  to 
note  the  effect  of  natural  emotion  on  a  vigorous 
nature  which  had  intrepidly  and  even  gayly  faced 
death  in  every  form  without  the  least  fear  of  it. 
The  ruddy  face  palpably  reddened  still  more  with 
restrained  feeling ;  in  a  second  or  two  the  tears 
gathered  in  the  bright  eyes,  and  as  the  last  line  was 
uttered  they  dropped  slowly  down  his  cheeks,  one 
after  another,  with  that  slight  gasp  of  suppressed 
emotion  in  the  throat  which  it  is  almost  terrible  to 
witness  in  a  strong  man.     The  silence  that  ensued 


EECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  Ill 

could  not  have  been  more  than  half  a  minute,  but  it 
seemed  to  us  who  were  present  to  endure  an  hour. 
Longfellow  himself  could  not  have  dreamed  of  pro- 
ducing such  an  effect,  for  his  tone  of  voice  in  the  last 
verse  was  almost  monotonous.  But  Agassiz  recovered 
his  equanimity  as  by  magic,  lifted  his  great  head  from 
its  recumbent  posture,  and,  with  eyes  still  glistening, 
bowed  and  smiled  his  acknowledgments  to  the  poet 
with  exquisite  grace  and  good-fellowship.  The  ordi- 
nary course  of  conversation  at  a  festive  dinner  then 
ran  fluently  on.  It  was  the  first  time  that  I  had  seen 
a  great,  brave,  strong  man  shed  tears,  and  I  am  not 
ambitious  of  ever  seeing  it  again.  It  was  inexpres- 
sibly affecting  and  inexpressibly  painful. 

It  may  be  well  to  add  that  "  Louis  "  was  the  favor- 
ite son  of  Madame  Agassiz.  She  was  the  wife  of  a 
Protestant  clergyman  ;  and  Professor  Silliman,  who 
visited  her  in  1851,  tells  us  that  although  nearly  four- 
score, "her  healthful  person  was  erect,  tall,  and  dig- 
nified, while  her  animated  and  warm  address  placed 
us  instantly  at  ease."  As  soon  as  Professor  Silliman 
told  her  that  he  was  the  friend  of  her  son,  that  his 
adopted  country  welcomed  him  among  its  most  pre- 
cious possessions,  "  her  strong  frame  was  agitated, 
her  voice  trembled  with  emotion,  and  the  flowing  tears 
told  the  story  of  a  mother's  heart  not  yet  chilled  by 
age.  .  .  .  The  next  morning  she  came,  walking  alone 
a  long  distance  in  the  rain,  to  bid  us  farewell,  and 
parted  from  us,  evidently  with  deep  emotion,  and  not 
concealed,  for  we  had  brought  the  vision  of  her  favor- 


112  RECOLLECTIONS  OE  AGASSIZ. 

ite  son  near  to  her  mental  sight  again.  She  brought 
for  Mrs.  Silliman  a  little  bouquet  of  pansies,  and  bade 
us  tell  her  son  her  pensees  were  all  for  him."  Such 
a  mother  !  In  reading  but  a  few  days  ago  these 
passages  from  the  journal  of  the  venerable  Professor 
Silliman,  I  detected  the  cause  of  the  unwonted  out- 
break of  sensibility  which  marked  the  celebration  of 
the  fiftieth  birthday  of  Agassiz. 

Agassiz,  when  he  first  visited  the  United  States, 
had  no  intention  of  making  here  his  permanent  home  ; 
but  he  ended  in  becoming  a  passionate  patriot  of  his 
adopted  country ;  and  his  love  for  it,  his  delight  in  it, 
and  his  determination  to  remain  in  it  were  expressed 
in  terms  which  might  almost  have  satisfied  the  re^ 
quirements  of  Mr.  Jefferson  Brick.  The  warm  recog- 
nition he  met  from  his  scientific  brethren  must  have 
been  very  gratifying ;  but  he  also  found  that  he  soon 
became  a  favorite  with  every  kind  and  variety  of  our 
people,  —  scholars,  merchants,  manufacturers,  me- 
chanics, and  farmers,  —  and  that  he  could  not  appear 
before  any  audience  without  receiving  the  most  flatter- 
ing testimonials  of  regard  as  well  as  of  respect.  The 
hearts,  the  minds,  the  purses  of  the  people  were  open 
to  him.  He  often  remarked  to  me,  as  he  doubtless 
remarked  to  thousands  of  others,  that  he  had  never 
known  such  a  population  as  ours.  In  Europe,  if  you 
desired  to  advance  science,  you  had  a  hard  task  in 
getting  money  from  kings  and  nobles ;  but  here,  he 
said,  tlie  democracy  seemed  more  liberal  than  kings 
and  nobles.     He  never  ceased  to  be  amazed  at  the 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  113 

amount  of  money  he  obtained  from  our  citizens  and 
legislators  in  aid  of  his  scientific  schemes,  and  at  the 
short  space  of  time  that  was  consumed  in  obtaining  it. 
His  surprise  at  first  resembled  that  of  Jenny  Lind 
when  she  faced  the  immense  audience  that  attended 
her  opening  concert,  the  price  of  admission  being 
ten  dollars.  "  Where,"  she  asked  Barnum,  "  does 
de  peoples  gets  all  de  money  ? "  The  recognition  of 
Agassiz  was  not  confined  to  the  cultured  or  the  mon- 
eyed classes.  In  his  scientific  explorations  in  various 
parts  of  the  country  he  found  that  when  he  desired 
aid  to  unearth  some  curious  object  he  had  discovered, 
a  few  minutes'  talk  with  farm-laborers  or  miners  near 
by  would  send  them  after  him  to  the  spot  where  they 
were  to  use  their  shovels  and  pickaxes  in  his  unpaid 
service.  His  fame  was  so  diffused  that  no  queer 
living  thing  was  caught  in  wood  or  river,  no  strange 
rock  unearthed  in  opening  the  track  for  a  new  rail- 
road, that  was  not  sent  to  him  as  the  one  man  in  the 
country  that  could  explain  it.  His  magnetic  power 
when  he  was  himself  in  the  field  of  observation  resem- 
bled that  of  the  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,  drawing  all 
living  creatures  after  him  to  the  sound  of  his  alluring 
music.  He  made  everybody  interested  in  natural 
history  who  came  within  his  sphere.  To  all  general 
statements  there  are,  of  course,  exceptions ;  and  the 
exception  in  the  case  of  Agassiz  was,  as  may  easily 
be  guessed,  that  of  a  hard-headed  Yankee  stage-driver 
among  the  New  Hampshire  hills.  On  one  occasion 
while  journeying  through  the  White  Mountain  region 

8 


114  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

he  and  his  scientific  companion,  seated  on  the  top  of 
the  stage,  irritated  the  driver  by  repeatedly  calling 
upon  him  to  stop  when  they  noticed  anything  botan- 
ically  fascinating  on  the  road,  and  jumping  down  from 
their  seats  in  order  to  obtain  it.  Professor  Felton, 
who  was  with  them,  kept  his  seat  during  the  whole 
ride,  and  told  the  driver  in  explanation  of  their  con- 
duct that  they  were  naturalists.  On  the  next  day, 
when  the  coachman  had  another  load  of  passengers, 
he  narrated  to  those  near  him  on  the  box  the  strange 
freaks  of  his  yesterday's  companions.  "  Their  keeper," 
he  added,  "  called  them  naterals ;  and  certainly  they 
behaved  as  sich." 

Agassiz  came  at  last,  as  I  have  said,  to  love  our 
country  so  dearly  that  no  inducements  were  strong 
enough  to  tempt  him  to  leave  it.  He  showed  to  me, 
shortly  after  the  correspondence  was  closed,  the  series 
of  letters  which  passed  between  him  and  the  minis- 
ter of  Xapoleon  III.  The  Emperor  offered  him  the 
post  of  director  of  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  with  a  seat, 
I  think,  in  the  Senate.  The  position  was  one  which 
a  scientific  man  of  the  highest  rank  might  well  covet, 
and  the  emoluments  of  the  office,  with  that  of  the  other 
office  associated  with  it,  were  quite  large.  His  ac- 
ceptance of  the  offer  would  have  given  him  at  Paris 
a  rank  equal  to  that  which  Cuvier  occupied  in  his 
time.  He  respectfully  declined  it,  on  the  ground  that 
he  was  then  engaged  in  original  researches  in  the 
United  States  which  promised  to  be  very  fruitful  in 
zoological  discovery,  and  which  would  take  him  some 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  115 

years  to  complete.  He  considered  that  the  corre- 
spondence was  closed ;  but  he  was  surprised  by  re- 
ceiving another  letter  from  the  minister,  renewing  the 
offer,  and  informing  him  that  the  high  office  would 
be  kept  open  for  him  until  his  American  researches 
were  completed.  Agassiz  justly  thought  that  this  was 
the  greatest  compliment  ever  paid  to  him ;  but  his 
determination  to  live  and  die  in  his  adopted  country 
was  fixed,  and  his  letter  indicating  this  determination 
closed  the  correspondence.  I  preserve  but  a  vague 
memory  of  the  letters ;  they  will  probably  be  pub- 
lished in  the  forthcoming  biography  of  Agassiz  by  the 
accomplished  and  high-souled  woman,  the  companion 
of  his  scientific  journeys,  the  partner  of  his  thoughts, 
troubles,  anxieties,  triumphs,  and  aspirations,  who 
was  at  once  the  wife  of  his  mind  and  of  his  heart. 
The  simplicity,  the  earnestness,  the  depth  of  his  affec- 
tions were  never  so  clearly  indicated  to  his  friends  as 
in  the  slightest  reference  he  made  to  her.  Such  mar- 
riages are  surely  made  in  heaven  before  they  are  after- 
ward consummated  on  earth  ! 

Another  bond  which  held  him  to  the  United  States 
was  his  high  esteem  for  our  American  men  of  science. 
He  felt  they  were  not  properly  appreciated  abroad, 
especially  in  England.  He  hoped  to  live  to  the  time 
when  this  country  would  be  recognized  as  one  of  the 
centres  of  science,  and  not  as  a  mere  scientific  colony 
of  Germany,  France,  and  Great  Britain ;  when  the 
judgments  of  our  scientific  associations  and  journals 
would  confer  or  confirm  reputations  all  over  the  world ; 


116  KECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ. 

and  when  none  of  our  scientists  would  value,  as  some 
of  them  now  do,  a  slight  recognition  in  foreign  jour- 
nals of  science  more  than  the  warmest  appreciation 
from  American  organs  of  scientific  opinion.  On  the 
latter  point  he  was  wont  to  indulge  in  delightful  out- 
bursts of  noble  rage.  "  Don't  you  see,"  he  exclaimed, 
"  that  every  American  man  of  science  who  is  elated 
by  foreign  recognition,  and  makes  it  a  mark  of  honor 
distinguishing  him  from  his  brethren  here,  stamps 
himself  as  a  provincial  as  much  as  a  Canadian  or  New 
Brunswick  politician  does  when  he  is  unduly  excited 
by  a  favorable  notice  from  the  government  at  Lon- 
don ?  Do  you  suppose  that  men  like  Bache  or  Henry 
or  Peirce  or  Wyman,  or  a  dozen  others,  care  what  is 
said  of  them  abroad  ?  They  stand  on  what  they  are 
and  on  what  they  have  done  and  are  doing ;  and  they 
know  that  everything  they  really  do  to  advance  sci- 
ence passes  inevitably  into  the  current  of  scientific 
thought,  and  must  be  respected,  whatever  Edinburgh 
or  London  or  Paris  or  Berlin  may  say.  They  are 
metropolitans,  not  provincials ;  and  I  hate  to  see  an 
American  of  scientific  genius  show  himself  a  provin- 
cial in  spirit,  when  his  genius  might  easily  place  him 
among  the  metropolitans,  and  force  foreigners  —  as 
far  as  in  science  any  man  can  be  a  foreigner  —  to 
frankly  acknowledge  his  equality  with  the  best  of 
them.  You  can  easily  make  this  country  a  centre  of 
scientific  intelligence  if  you  discard  the  foolish  notion 
that  your  true  judges  are  not  in  your  own  country  but 
in  Europe.     Respect  yourselves,  and  they  will  soon 


KECOLLECTIONS  OF  AGASSIZ.  117 

come  to  respect  you.  Be  indifferent  to  what  they 
say,  if  you  desire  them  to  say  pleasant  things  of  you." 
Indeed,  Agassiz  spoke  on  this  matter  as  we  have  heard 
some  self-respecting  men  of  letters  speak  of  the  ab- 
jectness  of  spirit  whicli  leads  many  of  our  authors  to 
value  a  bit  of  condescending  praise  awarded  to  them 
by  some  obscure  critic  in  an  English  magazine  or 
review  as  of  more  worth  than  the  most  careful,  cor- 
dial, and  intelligent  judgment  passed  upon  them  by 
an  American  organ  of  literary  opinion. 

Indeed,  few  native-born  Americans  accepted  more 
thoroughly  than  did  Agassiz  the  ideas  and  sentiments 
on  which  our  institutions  are  founded.  He  had  a 
boundless  confidence  in  the  intellectual  as  well  as 
the  material  future  of  the  country.  As  he  was  him- 
self brought  into  cordial  relations  with  every  class 
of  our  society,  and  was  liked  and  aided  by  all  classes, 
he  considered  that  pure  science  (which  he  specially 
represented)  would  always  have  its  claims  recognized 
by  our  democracy,  if  men  of  science  followed  his  exam- 
ple in  coming  into  close  contact  with  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  the  people.  He  had  immense  confidence 
in  education ;  but  then  he  desired  that  educators 
should  be  persons  capable  not  merely  of  communi- 
cating knowledge,  but  of  communicating  the  sacred 
thirst  for  knowledge.  In  his  will  he  described  him- 
self as  "  Louis  Agassiz,  Teacher T  Every  schoolmaster 
and  schoolmistress  in  the  land  must  have  felt  an  un- 
wonted, ennobling  thrill  in  reading  that  announcement, 
for  it  gave  to  his  or  her  work  a  dignity  which  could 


118  RECOLLECTIONS  OE  AGASSIZ. 

not  be  denied,  after  one  of  the  foremost  minds  of  the 
age  had  adopted  "teacher"  as  his  peculiar  distinction. 
Indeed,  Agassiz  always  insisted  that  something  resem- 
bling miracles  might  be  wrought  in  re-forming  the 
people  through  zw-forming  them,  if  teachers  could  be 
inspired  with  the  grandeur  of  the  task  imposed  upon 
them;  and  his  hope  for  the  future  of  the  country 
rested  on  his  firm  belief  that  it  would  produce  teachers 
competent  to  grapple  with  ignorance  and  vice,  and 
to  educate  the  democracy  whose  will,  enlightened  by 
knowledge,  was  to  determine  the  fate  of  the  land. 
He  thought  the  profession  of  the  teacher  the  noblest 
of  all  professions ;  and  he  extended  the  office  of 
teachers  so  as  to  include  all  good  and  great  minds 
engaged  in  disseminating  knowledge  or  in  increasing 
it.  He  himself  gloried  in  the  title  of  "  schoolmaster," 
and  preferred  it  to  that  of  "  professor  ; "  no  school- 
master or  schoolmistress  ever  conversed  with  him  ten 
minutes  without  gaining  new  inspiration,  as  well  as 
new  information,  by  contact  with  that  compr.ehen- 
sive  mind  and  opulent  soul ;  and  there  is  no  danger 
that  our  young  democracy  will  grow  up  to  manhood 
unfitted  to  perform  their  duties  and  vindicate  their 
rights,  provided  the  spirit  of  Agassiz  animates  their 
teachers. 


SOME    RECOLLECTIONS    OP    RALPH 

WALDO  emerson: 

It  is  impossible  for  those  who  knew  Emerson  only 
through  his  writings  to  understand  the  peculiar  love 
and  veneration  felt  for  him  by  those  who  knew  him 
personally.  Only  by  intercourse  with  him  could  the 
singular  force,  sweetness,  elevation,  originality,  and 
comprehensiveness  of  his  nature  be  fully  appreciated ; 
and  the  friend  or  acquaintance,  however  he  might 
differ  from  him  in  opinion,  felt  the  peculiar  fascina- 
tion of  his  character,  and  revolved  around  this  solar 
mind  in  obedience  to  the  law  of  spiritual  gravitation, 
—  the  spiritual  law  operating,  like  the  natural  law, 
directly  as  the  mass,  and  inversely  as  the  square  of 
the  distance.  The  friends  nearest  to  him  loved  and 
honored  him  most;  but  those  who  only  met  him 
occasionally  felt  the  attraction  of  his  spiritual  power, 
and  could  not  mention  him  without  a  tribute  of  re- 
spect. There  probably  never  was  another  man  of 
the  first  class,  with  a  general  system  of  thought  at 
variance  with  accredited  opinions,  who  exercised  so 
much  gentle,  persuasive  power  over  the  minds  of  his 
opponents.  By  declining  all  temptations  to  contro- 
versy he  never  raised  the  ferocious  spirit  which  con- 


120  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

troversy  engenders;  he  went  on,  year  after  year,  in 
affirming  certain  spiritual  facts  which  had  been  re- 
vealed to  him  when  his  soul  was  on  the  heights  of 
spiritual  contemplation ;  and  if  he  differed  from 
other  minds,  he  thought  it  ridiculous  to  attempt  to 
convert  them  to  his  individual  insight  and  experi- 
ence by  arguments  against  their  individual  insights 
and  their  individual  experiences.  To  his  readers  in 
the  closet  and  his  hearers  on  the  lecture  platform 
he  poured  lavishly  out  from  his  intellectual  treasury 
—  from  the  seemingly  exhaustless  Fortunatus'  purse 
in  his  mind  —  the  silver  and  gold,  the  pearls,  rubies, 
amethysts,  opals,  and  diamonds  of  thought.  If  his 
readers  and  his  audiences  chose  to  pick  them  up,  they 
were  welcome  to  them ;  but  if  they  conceived  he  was 
deceiving  them  with  sham  jewelry,  he  would  not  con- 
descend to  explain  the  laborious  processes  in  the 
mines  of  meditation  by  which  he  had  brought  the  hid- 
den treasures  to  light.  I  never  shall  forget  his  curt 
answer  to  a  superficial  auditor  of  one  of  his  lectures. 
The  critic  was  the  intellectual  busybody  of  the  place, 
dipping  into  everything,  knowing  nothing,  but  con- 
triving by  his  immense  loquacity  to  lead  the  opinion 
of  the  town.  "  Now,  Mr.  Emerson,"  he  said,  "  I  ap- 
preciated much  of  your  lecture,  but  I  should  like  to 
speak  to  you  of  certain  things  in  it  which  did  not 
command  my  assent  and  approbation."  Emerson 
turned  to  him,  gave  him  one  of  his  piercing  looks, 

and  replied,  "  Mr. ,  if  anj-thing  I  have  spoken 

this  evening  met  your  mood,  it  is  well ;  if  it  did  not. 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  121 

I  must  tell  you  that  I  never  argue  on  these  high 
questions ; "  and  as  he  thus  somewhat  haughtily  es- 
caped from  his  would-be  querist,  he  cared  little  that 
this  gossip  and  chatterer  about  philosophy  and  reli- 
gion would  exert  all  his  influence  to  prevent  Emerson 
from  ever  lecturing  again  in  that  town. 

Indeed,  everybody  who  intimately  knew  this  seer 
and  thinker  had  the  good  sense  never  to  intrude  into 
the  inward  sanctities  and  privacies  of  his  individual 
meditations,  and  vulgarly  ask  questions  as  to  the 
doubts  and  conflicts  he  had  encountered  in  that  utter 
loneliness  of  thought  where  his  individual  soul,  in 
direct  contact  as  he  supposed  with  the  "  Oversoul," 
was  trying  to  solve  problems  of  existence  which  per- 
plex all  thoughtful  minds.  He  would  do  nothing 
more  than  make  affirmations  regarding  the  deep 
things  of  the  spirit,  which  were  to  be  accepted  or 
rejected  as  they  happened  to  strike  or  miss  the  point 
of  inlet  into  the  other  intellects  he  addressed. 

This  austere  reticence  was  consistent  with  the 
most  perfect  sincerity.  Indeed,  Emerson  preached 
sincerity  as  among  the  first  of  virtues.  He  never 
hesitated  to  tell  the  poets,  prose  writers,  reformers, 
"fanatics,"  who  were  his  friends  and  acquaintances, 
exactly  what  he  thought  of  them ;  and  there  was 
never  a  doubt  of  his  mental  and  moral  honesty  in 
their  reception  of  his  criticism.  He  could  afford  to 
be  sincere,  for  everybody  felt  that  there  was  no  taint 
of  envy,  jealousy,  or  malice  in  his  nature.  When  he 
frankly  told  such  men  as  Longfellow,  Lowell,  Holmes, 


122  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

and  Whittier  that  in  a  particular  poem  they  did  not 
come  up  to  his  high  ideal  of  what  a  poet  should  be 
and  do,  they  assented  to  the  criticism,  and  never 
dreamed  that  his  judgment  was  influenced  by  the 
failure  of  his  own  poetry  to  attract  that  public  at- 
tention which  was  righteously  due  to  its  vital  excel 
lence ;  for  they  all  cordially  agreed  in  thinking  that 
he  was  the  greatest  poet  the  country  had  produced. 
There  is  not  a  solitary  instance  of  his  hesitating, 
kindly  disapprobation  of  a  writer  who  ranked  among 
his  associates  which  did  not  make  the  writer  grate- 
ful to  Emerson  for  his  criticism,  and  which  did  not 
make  him  sensible  that  nothing  base  or  mean  could 
have  prompted  it.  So  it  was  with  the  ardent  re- 
formers. Garrison  and  Phillips,  not  to  mention 
others,  instinctively  felt  that  Emerson  was  a  man 
not  to  be  assailed  when  he  differed  from  them  in 
their  method  of  applying  to  affairs  the  moral  sen- 
timent of  which  Emerson  was  the  most  eloquent 
and  authoritative  spokesman :  not,  indeed,  a  voice 
crying  in  the  wilderness,  but  a  voice  which  seemed 
to  utter  eternal  decrees,  coming  from  the  serene 
communion  of  the  speaker  with  the  very  source  of 
moral  law. 

The  native  elevation  of  Emerson's  mind  and  the 
general  loftiness  of  his  thinking  have  sometimes 
blinded  his  admirers  to  the  fact  that  he  was  one  of 
the  shrewdest  of  practical  observers,  and  was  capa- 
ble of  meeting  so-called  practical  men  on  the  level 
of  the  facts  and  principles  which  they  relied  upon 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  123 

for  success  in  life.  When  I  first  had  the  happiness 
to  make  his  acquaintance  I  was  a  clerk  in  a  banking- 
house.  I  have  a  faint  memory  of  having  written  in 
a  penny  paper  a  notice  of  his  first  volume  of  Essays 
which  differed  altogether  from  the  notices  that  ap- 
peared in  business  journals  of  a  higher  rank  and 
price.  The  first  thing  that  struck  me  was  the 
quaint,  keen,  homely  good-sense  which  was  one  of 
the  marked  characteristics  of  the  volume ;  and  I 
contrasted  the  coolness  of  this  transcendentalist, 
whenever  he  discussed  matters  relating  to  the  con- 
duct of  life,  with  the  fury  of  delusion  under  which 
merchants  of  established  reputation  seemed  some- 
times to  be  laboring  in  their  mad  attempts  to  resist 
the  operation  of  the  natural  laws  of  trade.  They,  I 
thought,  were  the  transcendentalists,  the  subjective 
poets,  the  Ronsseaus  and  Byrons  of  business,  who 
in  their  greed  were  fiercely  "  accommodating  the 
shows  of  things  to  the  desires  of  the  mind,"  without 
any  practical  insight  of  principles  or  foresight  of  con- 
sequences. Nothing  more  amazed  me,  when  I  was  a 
clerk,  recording  transactions  in  which  I  incurred  no 
personal  responsibility,  than  the  fanaticism  of  capital- 
ists in  venturing  their  money  in  wild  speculations. 
The  willingness  to  buy  waste  and  worthless  Eastern 
lands ;  the  madness  of  the  men  who  sunk  their  mil- 
lions in  certain  railroads ;  and  the  manias  which 
occasionally  seize  upon  and  passionately  possess  busi- 
ness men,  surpassing  in  folly  those  fine  frenzies  of 
the  imagination   which    are   considered    to   lead  to 


124  SOME  KECOLLECTIONS  OF 

absurdities  belonging  to  poets  alone,  —  all  these  facts 
early  impressed  me  with  the  conviction  that  a  tran- 
scendentalist  of  the  type  of  Emerson  was  as  good 
a  judge  of  investments  on  earth  as  he  was  of  invest- 
ments in  the  heavens  above  the  earth. 

As  far  as  my  memory  serves  me  at  this  time,  I 
think  to  me,  in  my  youthful  presumption,  belongs 
the  dubious  honor  or  dishonor  of  calling  liim  our 
"  Greek- Yankee,  —  a  cross  between  Plato  and  Jona- 
than Slick."  I  am  less  certain  as  to  the  other  state- 
ment, that  he  was  "  a  Hindoo-Yankee,  —  a  cross  be- 
tween Brahma  and  Poor  Richard ; "  and  there  are 
so  many  competitors  for  the  distinction  of  originat- 
ing these  epigrammatic  impertinences  that  I  should 
no  more  dare  to  present  my  claims  to  priority  in 
inventing  them  than  to  re-open  the  controversy  re- 
specting the  authorship  of  "  Beautiful  Snow,"  or 
"  Rock  me  to  sleep,  Mother."  But  I  always  won- 
dered that  the  Franklin  side  of  his  opulent  and  genial 
nature  did  not  draw  to  him  a  host  of  readers  who 
might  be  repelled  by  the  dazzling  though  puzzling 
sentences  in  which  his  ideal  philosophy  found  expres- 
sion. It  is  to  be  supposed  that  such  persons  refused 
to  read  him  because  they  distrusted  his  constant 
tendency  to  combine  beauty  with  use.  The  sense 
of  beauty,  indeed,  was  so  vital  an  element  in  the 
very  constitution  of  his  being  that  it  decorated  every- 
thing it  touched.  He  was  a  thorough  artist,  while 
inculcating  maxims  of  thrift  far  beyond  those  of 
Poor  Richard.     His  beautiful   genius  could  not  be 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  125 

suppressed  even  when  he  discoursed  of  the  ugliest 
sides  of  a  farmer's  life  ;  he  shed  an  ideal  light  over 
pots  and  cans,  over  manure-heaps  and  cattle-raising ; 
and  when  he  announced  that  maxim  of  celestial 
prudence,  "  Hitch  your  wagon  to  a  star,"  the  tran- 
scendcntalist  was  discovered  peeping  through  the 
economist,  and  it  became  hard  to  believe  that  he  was 
in  ordinary  affairs  a  really  practical  man.  He  should 
have  stuck,  the  economists  said,  to  the  wagon,  and 
left  out  the  star ;  though  the  introduction  of  the  star 
was  really  the  most  practical  thing  in  his  quaint 
statement  of  the  vital  dependence  of  individual  thrift 
on  directing  and  all-embracing  law. 

The  raciest  testimony  that  ever  came  within  my 
knowledge  as  to  the  soundness  of  Emerson  in  prac- 
tical matters  was  delivered  by  a  sturdy,  stalwart 
Vermonter  in  a  car  on  the  Fitchburg  Railroad.  My 
journey  was  to  be  a  tedious  one  of  three  hundred 
miles,  and  when  I  took  my  seat  in  the  car  I  felt 
that  my  fellow-passengers  would  give  me  no  such 
glimpses  into  their  characters  as  would  be  afforded 
by  a  ride  of  ten  miles  in  a  stage-coach.  In  a  railroad 
car  the  passengers  are  gloomily  reticent,  as  if  they 
expected  to  be  launched  into  eternity  at  any  moment ; 
in  a  stage  they  indulge  in  all  the  fury  of  gossip,  and 
reveal  themselves  while  praising  or  censuring  others. 
There  were  two  persons  in  front  of  me,  mighty  in 
bulk,  but  apparently  too  much  absorbed  in  their  own 
reflections  to  speak  to  each  other.  The  train,  as 
usual,  stopped  at  Concord.     Then  one  of  the  giants 


126  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

turned  to  the  other,  and  lazily  remarked,  "  Mr. 
Emerson,  I  hear,  lives  in  this  town." 

"  Ya-as,"  was  the  drawling  rejoinder ;  "  and  I  under- 
stand that,  in  spite  of  his  odd  notions,  he  is  a  man  of 
con-sid-er-able  propity." 

This  apposite  judgment  was  made  when  Emerson's 
Essays  had  been  translated  into  most  of  the  languages 
of  Europe,  and  when  the  recognition  of  his  genius  was 
even  more  cordial  abroad  than  it  was  among  his  few 
thousands  of  appreciative  admirers  at  home ;  but  the 
shrewd  Yankee  who  uttered  it  was  more  impressed 
by  his  thrift  than  by  his  thinking.  He  belonged  to 
the  respectable  race  of  c?escendentalists,  and  was  evi- 
dently puzzled  to  understand  how  a  trawscendentalist 
could  acquire  "  propity." 

On  one  occasion,  in  my  early  acquaintance  with 
Emerson,  I  was  hastily  summoned  to  lecture  at  a 
country  town  some  five  miles  from  Boston,  because 
Emerson,  who  had  been  expected  to  occupy  the  desk, 
had  not  signified  his  acceptance  of  the  invitation. 
He  either  had  neglected  to  answer  the  letter  of  the 
committee,  or  his  own  note  in  reply  had  miscarried. 
About  ten  minutes  before  the  lecture  was  to  begin, 
Emerson  appeared.  Of  course  I  insisted  on  having 
the  privilege  of  listening  to  him,  rather  than  compel 
the  audience  to  listen  to  me.  He  generously  declared 
that  as  the  mistake  seemed  to  have  arisen  from  his 
own  neglect,  I  had  the  right  to  the  platform.  When 
I  solemnly  assured  him  that  no  lecture  would  be  heard 
that,  evening  in  that  town  unless  he  delivered  it,  he, 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  127 

still  somewhat  protesting,  unrolled  his  manuscript, 
and  took  his  place  at  the  desk.  The  lecture,  though 
perhaps  not  one  of  his  best  lyceum  discourses,  was 
better  than  the  best  of  any  other  living  lecturer. 
When  it  was  over,  he  invited  me  to  take  a  seat  in  the 
chaise  which  had  brought  him  from  Boston.  I  gladly 
accepted.  The  horse  was,  fortunately  for  me,  one  of 
the  slowest  beasts  that  ever  had  the  assurance  to 
pretend  to  convey  two  persons  faster  by  carriage, 
from  one  point  to  another,  than  an  ordinary  pedestrian 
could  accomplish  in  a  meditative  walk.  The  pace 
was,  I  think,  about  two  miles  an  hour.  As  soon  as 
we  got  into  the  chaise,  I  began  to  speak  of  the  lecture, 
and  referring  to  what  he  had  said  of  the  Puritans,  I 
incidentally  alluded  to  the  peculiar  felicity  of  his  use 
of  the  word  "  grim,"  and  added  that  I  noticed  it  was  a 
favorite  word  with  him  in  his  published  Essays.  "  Do 
you  say,"  he  eagerly  responded,  "  that  I  use  the  word 
often  ?  "  "  Yes,"  I  replied,  "  but  never  without  its 
being  applicable  to  the  class  of  persons  you  are  char- 
acterizing." He  reflected  a  minute  or  two,  and  then 
said,  as  if  he  had  experienced  a  pang  of  intellectual 
remorse,  "  The  word  is  probably  passing  with  me  into 
a  mannerism,  and  I  must  hereafter  guard  against  it,  — 
must  banish  it  from  my  dictionary." 

By  this  time  we  had  passed  out  of  the  town  into 
the  long  country  road  which  led  to  Boston.  Emerson 
was  in  his  happiest  mood.  He  entered  into  a  peculiar 
kind  of  conversation  with  his  young  companion,  in 
which   reverie   occasionally   emerged   into   soliloquy. 


128  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

and  then  again  became  a  real  talk  between  the  two, 
though  ever  liable  to  subside  into  reverie  and  solilo- 
quy if  his  interlocutor  had  tact  enough  to  restrain  his 
own  tendency  to  self-expression.  I  shall  never  for- 
get that  evening.  The  moon  was  nearly  at  its  full, 
undisturbed  by  a  cloud,  and  the  magical  moonlight 
flooded  the  landscape  and  skyscape  with  its  soft, 
gentle,  serene,  mystical  radiance,  making  strangely 
unreal  all  things  that  seem  so  substantial  when 
viewed  in  the  "  insolent,"  revealing  glare  of  the  sun. 
Astronomers  tell  us  that  the  moon  is  a  dead  body,  all 
its  central  fires  burned  out,  and  swinging  in  space  as 
a  lifeless  mass  of  matter,  good  for  nothing  except  to 
give  us  light  for  about  half  the  nights  of  every  month 
in  the  year,  or  to  illustrate  the  operation  of  the  law 
of  gravitation ;  but  of  all  the  lights  in  the  solar  or 
stellar  system  it  is  pre-eminently  the  idealist  and 
transcendentalist  of  the  tenants  of  the  sky  ;  and  I 
never  felt  its  mystical  charm  more  profoundly  than 
on  this  ride  of  two  hours  with  Emerson.  The  lazy 
horse  seemed  to  be  indulging  in  the  luxury  of  his  own 
reflections,  and  was  only  kept  from  stopping  altogether 
and  setting  up  as  a  philosopher  on  his  own  account, 
renouncing  his  ignominious  bondage  to  harness  and 
bridle,  by  the  occasional  idle  flap  of  Emerson's  whip 
on  his  hide,  —  a  stimulant  to  exertion  which  was  so 
light  that  I  thought  its  full  force  could  not  have 
broken  the  backbone  of  an  ordinary  fly.  So  we 
"  tooled  on."  The  conversation  at  last  drifted  to 
contemporary  actors  who  assumed  to  personate  lead- 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  129 

ing  characters  in  Shakspeare's  greatest  plays.  Had 
I  ever  seen  an  actor  who  satisfied  me  when  he  pre- 
tended to  bo  Hamlet  or  Othello,  Lear  or  Macbeth  ? 
Yes,  I  had  seen  the  elder  Booth  in  these  characters. 
Though  not  perfect,  he  approached  nearer  to  perfec- 
tion than  any  other  actor  1  knew.  Nobody,  of  course, 
could  really  satisfy  a  student  of  Shakspeare.  Still,  I 
thought  that  the  elder  Booth  had  a  realizing  imagi- 
nation ;  that  he  conceived  the  nature  of  the  person  he 
embodied  in  its  essential  individual  qualities ;  that  so 
firm  and  true  was  his  imaginative  grasp  of  a  character 
that  he  preserved  the  unity  of  one  of  Shakspeare's 
complex  natures  while  giving  all  the  varieties  of  its 
manifestation.  Macready  might  be  the  more  popular 
actor  of  the  two,  at  least  in  all  "  refined "  circles ; 
but  the  trouble  with  Macready  was,  that  while  he  was 
gifted  with  a  good  understanding  he  was  strangely  defi- 
cient in  impassioned  imagination,  and  that  he  accord- 
ingly, by  a  logical  process,  inferred  the  character  he 
wished  to  impersonate  by  a  patient  study  of  Shak- 
speare's text,  and  then  played  the  inference. 

"Ah,"  said  Emerson,  giving  a  tender  touch  of  his 
whip  to  the  indolent  horse,  —  an  animal  which,  during 
the  three  minutes  I  consumed  in  eulogizing  Booth, 
showed  a  natural  disposition  to  go  to  sleep,  —  "I  see 
you  are  one  of  the  happy  mortals  who  are  capable  of 
being  carried  away  by  an  actor  of  Shakspeare.  Now, 
whenever  I  visit  the  theatre  to  witness  the  perform- 
ance of  one  of  his  dramas,  I  am  carried  away  by 
the  poet.     I  went  last  Tuesday  to  see  Macready  in 


130  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

'  Hamlet.'     I  got  along  very  well  until  he  came  to  the 

passage,  — 

*  thou,  dead  corse,  again,  in  complete  steel* 
Revisit'st  thus  the  glimpses  of  the  moon,'  — 

and  then  actor,  theatre,  all  vanished  in  view  of  that 
solving  and  dissolving  imagination,  which  could  re- 
duce this  big  globe  and  all  it  inherits  into  mere 
'  glimpses  of  the  moon.'  The  play  went  on,  but, 
absorbed  in  this  one  thought  of  the  mighty  master,  I 
paid  no  heed  to  it." 

What  specially  impressed  me,  as  Emerson  was 
speaking,  was  his  glance  at  our  surroundings  as  he 
slowly  uttered,  "  glimpses  of  the  moon ; "  for  here 
above  us  was  the  same  moon  which  must  have  given 
birth  to  Shakspeare's  thought,  its  soft  rays  of  conse- 
crating light  insinuating  a  sceptical  doubt  of  the  real 
existence  of  the  world  of  matter,  which,  in  the  fierce 
glow  of  the  noontide  sun,  appears  so  imperturbably 
conscious  of  a  solid,  incontestable  reality. 

Afterward,  in  bis  lecture  on  Shakspeare,  Emerson 
made  use  of  the  thought  suggested  in  our  ride  by 
moonlight.  He  said  :  "  That  imagination  which  di- 
lates the  closet  he  writes  in  to  the  world's  dimensions, 
crowds  it  with  agents  in  rank  and  order,  as  quickly 
reduces  the  big  reality  to  be  the  '  glimpses  of  the 
moon.'  "  It  seems  to  me  that  his  expression  of  the 
thought  as  it  occurred  to  him  when  he  felt  the  en- 
chantment of  the  moonlight  palpably  present  to  his 
eyes  and  imagination,  is  better  in  my  version  than  in 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  131 

the  comparatively  cold  language  in  which  he  afterward 
embodied  it.  But  in  the  printed  lecture  there  is  one 
sentence  declaring  the  absolute  insufficiency  of  any 
actor,  in  any  theatre,  to  fix  attention  on  himself  while 
uttering  Shakspeare's  words,  which  seems  to  me  the 
most  exquisite  statement  ever  made  of  the  magical 
suggestiveness  of  Shakspeare's  expression.  I  have 
often  quoted  it,  but  it  will  bear  quotation  again  and 
again,  as  the  best  prose  sentence  ever  written  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic  :  "  The  recitation  begins  ;  one 
golden  word  leaps  out  immortal  from  all  this  painted 
pedantry,  and  sweetly  torments  us  with  invitations  to 
its  oivn  inaccessible  homes' 

Emerson's  voice  had  a  strange  power,  which  affected 
me  more  than  any  other  voice  I  ever  heard  on  the 
stage  or  on  the  platform.  It  was  pure  thought  trans- 
lated into  purely  intellectual  tone,  the  perfect  music 
of  spiritual  utterance.  It  is  impossible  to  read  his 
verses  adequately  without  bearing  in  mind  his  peculiar 
accent  and  emphasis ;  and  some  of  the  grandest  and 
most  uplifting  passages  in  his  prose  lose  much  of 
their  effect  unless  the  reader  can  recall  the  tones 
of  his  voice,  —  a  voice  now,  alas !  silent  on  earth 
forever,  but  worthy  of  being  heard  in  that  celestial 
company  which  he,  "  a  spirit  of  the  largest  size  and 
divinest  mettle,"  has  now  exchanged  for  his  earthly 
companions.  There  was  nothing  sensual,  nothing 
even  sensuous,  nothing  weakly  melodious,  in  his 
utterance ;  but  his  voice  had  the  stern,  keen,  pene- 
trating sweetness  which  made  it  a  fit  organ  for  his 


132  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

self-centred,  commanding  mind.  Yet  though  peculiar 
to  himself,  it  had  at  the  same  time  an  impersonal 
character,  as  though  a  spirit  were  speaking  through 
him.  Thus  in  his  lecture  on  Swedenborg  he  began 
with  a  compact  statement  of  the  opinions  of  the 
Swedish  sage,  —  opinions  which  seemed  to  be  wide 
enough  to  compel  all  men,  pagans  and  Christians,  to 
assent  to  his  dogmatic  statements.  The  exposition 
was  becoming  monotonous  after  the  lapse  of  a  quarter 
of  an  hour.  The  audience  supposed  that  he  was  a 
convert  to  the  Swedenborgian  doctrines.  At  the  con- 
clusion of  his  exposition  he  paused  for  half  a  minute, 
and  then,  in  his  highest,  most  piercing  tones,  he  put  the 
question,  "  Who  is  Emanuel  SWEDENBORG?"  his 
voice  rising  as  he  accented  every  syllable.  The  effect 
was  electric.  Many  persons  in  the  audience  who  had 
begun  to  betray  a  decided  disposition  to  go  to  sleep 
waked  up.  The  lecturer  then  proceeded  to  give,  in 
short,  flashing  sentences  a  criticism  of  the  Sweden- 
borgian ideas,  which  seemed  to  have  bored  him  as 
they  undoubtedly  bored  many  of  his  hearers ;  and 
everybody  present  eagerly  listened  to  the  objections 
which  rendered  it  reasonable  for  them  to  recognize 
Swedenborg  as  a  very  great  representative  man,  with- 
out making  it  necessary  for  them  to  abandon  the 
churches  to  which  they  were  attaclied  and  swell  the 
congregations  of  those  of  the  New  Jerusalem. 

Again,  after  reciting  the  marvels  of  Shakspeare's 
genius,  placing  liim  above  all  other  writers,  he  came 
to  the  consideration  of  the  serious  side  of  this  great- 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  133 

est  of  poets.  What  did  he  teach  ?  "  He  converted 
the  elements,  which  waited  on  his  command,  into  en- 
tertainments. He  was  master  of  the  revels  to  man- 
kind. Is  it  not  as  if  one  should  have,  through  majestic 
powers  of  science,  the  comets  given  into  his  hand,  or 
the  planets  and  their  moons,  and  should  draw  them 
from  their  orbits  to  glare  with  the  municipal  fire- 
works on  a  holiday  night,  and  advertise  in  all  towns, 
*  very  superior  pyrotechny  this  evening '  ?  "  All  this 
was  delivered  in  an  intense  and  penetrating  yet  some- 
what subdued  tone,  and  it  is  hardly  possible  to  convey 
by  printers'  ink  and  types  the  gradual  rise  of  his  voice 
as  he  added :  "  One  remembers  again  the  trumpet  text 
in  the  Koran,  '  The  heavens  and  the  earth,  and  all 
that  is  between  them,  think  ye  we  have  created  them 
IN  JEST  ? '  "  It  is  only  by  a  typographical  rise  from 
italics  to  capitals  that  the  faintest  indication  can  be 
conveyed  of  the  upward  march  of  his  voice  as  it  finally 
pealed  forth  in  "  jest." 

In  another  lecture  he  had  occasion  to  refer  to  what 
Mr.  Choate  had  called  "  the  glittering  generalities  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence."  If  a  printer  could 
put  it  into  the  smallest  type  possible  to  be  read  by 
the  aid  of  the  microscope,  he  could  not  fitly  show  the 
scorn  embodied  in  the  first  part  of  the  sentence  in 
which  Emerson  replied ;  nor  could  the  same  printer's 
largest  types  suggest  an  idea  of  the  triumphant  tone, 
shot  as  from  a  vocal  ten-inch  gun,  in  which  he  gave 
the  second  portion  of  it :  "  Glittering  generalities !  — 
rather  blazing  UBIQUITIES  ! " 


134  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

Emerson's  generous  and  thorough  appreciation  of 
the  genius  and  character  of  Henry  D.  Thoreau  was 
shown  in  many  ways  and  on  many  occasions.  At  my 
first  or  second  visit  to  Concord  as  a  lecturer  before 
its  Lyceum,  he  said  to  me,  in  the  quaint,  condensed 
fashion  of  speech  in  which  he  always  sketched  an 
original  character :  "  You  should  know  Thoreau.  He 
became  disgusted  with  our  monotonous  civilization, 
and  went,  self-banished,  to  our  Walden  woods.  There 
he  lives.  He  built  his  own  hut,  cooks  his  own  food, 
refuses  to  pay  taxes,  reads  -^schylus,  abjures  models, 
and  is  a  great  man."  From  my  first  introduction, 
Thoreau  seemed  to  me  a  man  who  had  experienced 
Nature  as  other  men  are  said  to  have  experienced  re- 
ligion. An  unmistakable  courage,  sincerity,  and  man- 
liness breathed  in  every  word  he  uttered,  I  once  met 
him  and  Mr.  Alcott  in  State  Street,  in  the  busiest 
hour  of  the  day,  while  I  was  hurrying  to  a  bank. 
They  had  paused  before  a  saloon  to  get  a  glimpse  of 
the  crowds  of  merchants  and  brokers  passing  up  and 
down  the  street.  "  Ah ! "  I  laughingly  said,  after 
shaking  hands,  "  I  see  it  is  eleven  o'clock,  and  you 
are  going  to  take  a  drink."  Mr.  Alcott,  in  his  sweet- 
est and  most  serene  tones,  replied  for  both :  "  No ; 
vulgar  and  ordinary  stimulants  are  not  for  us.  But 
if  you  can  show  us  a  place  where  we  can  drink  Bacchus 
himself,  the  soul  of  the  inspiration  of  the  poet  and  the 
seer,  we  shall  be  your  debtors  forever."  There  is 
hardly  any  biography  recently  published  more  inter- 
esting than  Mr.  Sanborn's  life  of  Thoreau ;  for  Mr. 


R.iLPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  135 

Sanborn  knew  him  so  intimately  that  he  gives  us  an 
"  interior "  view  of  tlie  remarkable  person  he  has 
taken  for  his  subject.  Indeed,  what  can  be  more  in- 
teresting than  the  spectacle  of  a  man  whose  indepen- 
dence was  so  rooted  in  his  nature  that  he  coolly  set  up 
his  private  opinion  against  the  average  opinion  of  the 
human  race,  and  contrived  so  to  incorporate  his  opin- 
ion into  his  daily  life  that  he  came  out  in  the  end  a 
victor  in  the  contest  ?  And  in  respect  to  the  sympa- 
thy that  Nature  iiad  for  Jiim  in  return  for  his  sym- 
pathy with  her,  one  feels  that  he  must  have  been  in 
Emerson's  mind  when  he  celebrated,  in  "  Wood  Notes," 
his  "  forest  seer  :  "  — 

"  It  seemed  as  if  the  breezes  brought  him  ; 
It  seemed  as  if  the  sparrows  taught  him  ; 
As  if  by  secret  sight  he  knew 
"Where,  in  far  fields,  the  orchis  grew. 
Many  haps  fall  in  the  field 

Seldom  seen  by  wishful  eyes  ; 
But  all  her  shows  did  Nature  yield 

To  please  and  win  this  pilgrim  wise. 
He  saw  the  partridge  drum  in  the  woods  ; 

He  heard  the  woodcock's  evening  hymn  ; 
He  found  the  tawny  thrush's  brocjds  ; 

And  the  shy  hawk  did  wait  for  him ! 
What  others  did  at  distance  hear, 

And  guessed  within  the  thicket's  gloom, 
Was  shown  to  this  philosopher. 

And  at  his  bidding  seemed  to  come." 

Miss  Fredrika  Bremer,  in  her  book  recording  her 
tour  in  the  United  States,  took  unwarrantable  liber- 
ties in  describing  the  households   of  those   peraons 


136  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

whose  hospitalities  she  enjoyed.  Emerson  was  spe- 
cially annoyed  at  her  chatter  about  him  and  his  family. 
What  vexed  him  most,  however,  was  her  reference  to 
Samuel  Hoar,  —  a  man  whom  Emerson,  as  well  as  all 
other  citizens  of  Concord,  held  in  distinguished  honor 
as  the  living  embodiment  of  integrity,  intelligence, 
wisdom,  piety,  and  benevolence.  Emerson's  well- 
known  quatrain,  with  the  simple  title  "  S.  H.,"  is  a 
monument  to  this  good  and  wise  man's  memory :  — 

"  With  beams  December's  planets  dart 

His  cold  eye  truth  and  conduct  scanned  ; 
July  was  in  his  sunny  heart, 
October  in  his  liberal  hand." 

Yet  this  venerable  sage,  whose  native  dignity  should 
have  shielded  him  from  the  impertinence  of  even  a 
gossip  so  incorrigible  as  Miss  Bremer,  was  represented 
in  that  lady's  book  as  a  garrulous  old  gentleman,  who 
at  his  own  table,  to  which  she  was  an  invited  guest, 
had  made  in  lieu  of  the  ordinary  grace  a  prayer  which 
she  considered  so  long  as  to  be  tiresome.  "  As  if," 
said  Emerson  to  me,  in  his  deepest  indignant  tone, 
—  "as  if  Mr.  Hoar  was  expected  to  pray  for  her 
entertainment ! " 

He  had,  from  the  start,  a  strong  antipathy  to  "  spir- 
itism." When  departed  spirits,  by  "  knockings  "  and 
moving  furniture,  first  began  to  inform  us  poor  mor- 
tals that  they  were  still  alive,  —  alive,  however,  in  a 
world  which  appeared,  on  the  whole,  to  be  worse  than 
that  from  which  death  had  released  them,  —  the  great 
question  of  immortality  was  considered  by  many  pious 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.        137 

persons  to  have  obtained  new  evidences  of  its  truth 
from  these  materialistic  manifestations.  Emerson's 
fecHng  was  that  so  exquisitely  expressed  by  Tennyson  • 

"  How  pure  at  heart  and  sound  in  head, 
With  what  divine  affections  bold, 
Should  be  the  man  whose  thought  would  hold 
An  hour's  communion  with  the  dead ! 

"  In  vain  shalt  thou,  or  any,  call 

The  spirits  from  their  golden  day. 

Except,  like  them,  thou  too  canst  say, 
*  My  spirit  is  at  peace  with  all/ 

"  They  haunt  the  silence  of  the  breast, 

Imaginations  calm  and  fair,  , 

The  memory  like  a  cloudless  air, 
The  conscience  as  a  sea  at  rest." 

Emerson's  impatience  when  the  subject  came  up 
for  discussion  in  a  company  of  intelligent  people  was 
amusing  to  witness.  He  was  specially  indignant  at 
the  idea  of  women  adopting  spiritism  as  a  profession, 
and  engaging  to  furnish  all  people  with  news  of  their 
deceased  friends  at  a  shilling  a  head.  The  enormous 
vulgarity  of  the  whole  thing  impressed  him  painfully, 
especially  when  he  was  told  that  some  of  his  own 
friends  paid  even  the  slightest  attention  to  the  revela- 
tions, as  he  phrased  it,  of  "  those  seamstresses  turned 
into  sibyls,  who  charged  a  pistareen  a  spasm ! " 
Brougham's  well-known  remark  that  the  idea  of 
Campbell's  writing  his  life  added  a  new  horror  to 
death,  was  a  just  anticipation  of  a  terrible  fact ;  for 
Campbell   did  write  his  life,  and   made  a   dreadful 


138  SOME  UECOLLECTIONS  OF 

■wreck  of  Brougham's  reputation.  Happily,  Emerson's 
last  days  were  clouded  by  a  failure  of  memory,  or  he 
might  have  mourned  that  his  spirit  would  be  called 
by  "  mediums  "  from  "  its  golden  day,"  to  furnish  the 
public  with  information  detailing  his  present  "  gossip 
about  the  celestial  politics,"  translated  from  the  terse 
and  beautiful  language  in  which  he  was  accustomed 
to  speak  his  thoughts  on  earth  into  the  peculiar  dia- 
lect which  uneducated  mediums  generally  use  in  their 
rapt  communion  with  the  spirits  of  such  men  as 
Bacon,  Milton,  Webster,  and  Channing,  —  spirits 
who,  as  far  as  their  style  of  expression  and  elevation 
of  thought  are  concerned,  appear  to  have  found  their 
immortality  a  curse ;  spirits  who  have  dwindled  in 
mental  stature  just  in  proportion  as  they  have  as- 
cended into  the  region  of  incorporeal  existence ; 
spirits  not  made  perfect,  but  decidedly  mperfect  in 
heaven. 

After  his  return  from  his  second  visit  to  England, 
in  1847, 1  had  a  natural  wish  to  learn  his  impressions 
of  the  distinguished  men  he  had  met.  His  judgment 
of  Tennyson  was  this,  —  that  he  was  the  most "  satisfy- 
ing "  of  the  men  of  letters  he  had  seen.  He  witnessed 
one  of  Macaulay's  brilliant  feats  in  conversation  at  a 
dinner  where  Hallam  was  one  of  the  guests.  The 
talk  was  on  the  question  whether  the  "  additional  let- 
ters "  of  Oliver  Cromwell,  lately  published  by  Carlyle, 
were  spurious  or  genuine.  "For  my  part,"  said 
Emerson,  "  the  suspicious  fact  about  them  was  this,  — 
that  they  all  seemed  written  to  sustain  Mr.  Carlyle's 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  139 

view  of  Cromwell's  character;  but  the  discussion 
turned  on  the  external  evidences  of  their  being  for- 
geries. Macaulay  overcame  everybody  at  the  table, 
including  Hallam,  by  pouring  out  with  victorious  vol- 
ubility instances  of  the  use  of  words  in  a  different 
meaning  from  that  they  bore  in  Cromwell's  time,  or 
by  citing  words  which  were  not  in  use  at  all  until  half 
a  century  later.  A  question  which  might  have  been 
settled  in  a  few  minutes  by  the  consent  of  a  few  men 
of  insight,  opened  a  tiresome  controversy  which  lasted 
during  the  whole  dinner.  Macaulay  seemed  to  have 
the  best  of  it ;  still,  I  did  not  like  the  arrogance  with 
which  he  paraded  his  minute  information.  But  then 
there  was  a  fire,  speed,  fury,  talent,  and  effrontery  in 
the  fellow  which  were  very  taking."  When  Emerson, 
on  his  return,  made  in  his  "  English  Traits  "  his  short, 
contemptuous  criticism  on  Macaulay  as  a  writer  rep- 
resenting the  material  rather  than  the  spiritual  inter- 
ests of  England,  it  is  evident  that  the  verbal  bullet 
hit  the  object  at  which  it  was  aimed  in  the  white : 
"  The  brilliant  Macaulay,  who  expresses  the  tone  of 
the  English  governing  classes  of  the  day,  explicitly 
teaches  that  good  means  good  to  eat,  good  to  wear, 
material  commodity ;  that  the  glory  of  modern  phi- 
losophy is  its  direction  or  'fruit,'  to  yield  economi- 
cal inventions,  and  that  its  merit  is  to  avoid  ideas 
and  to  avoid  morals.  He  thinks  it  the  distinctive 
merit  of  the  Baconian,  philosophy  in  its  triumph  over 
the  old  Platonic,  its  disentangling  the  intellect  from 
theories  of  the  all-Fair  and  the  all-Good,  and  pinning 


140  SOME  KECOLLECTIONS  OE 

it  down  to  the  making  a  better  sick-chair  and  a  better 
wine-whey  for  an  invalid,  —  this  not  ironically,  but  in 
good  faith ;  that  '  solid  advantage,'  as  he  calls  it  — 
meaning  always  sensual  benefit  —  is  the  only  good." 
This  criticism,  though  keen,  is  undoubtedly  one-sided. 
Macaulay  felt  it.  In  the  height  of  his  fame,  in  Janu- 
ary, 1850,  he  writes  in  his  diary  :  "  Many  readers  give 
credit  for  profundity  to  whatever  is  obscure,  and  call 
all  that  is  perspicuous  shallow.  But,  coragio  I  and 
think  of  A.  D.  2850.  Where  will  your  Emersons  be 
then  ? "  Well,  it  may  be  confidently  predicted  they 
will  at  least  march  abreast  of  the  Macaulays. 

In  all  Emerson's  experience  as  a  lecturer  there 
was  only  one  occasion  when  he  received  that  tribute 
to  a  radical  orator's  timely  eloquence  which  is  ex- 
pressed in  hisses.  The  passage  of  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law  stirred  him  into  unwonted  moral  passion  and 
righteous  wrath.  He  accepted  an  invitation  to  de- 
liver a  lecture  in  Cambridgeport,  called  for  the  pur- 
pose of  protesting  against  that  infamous  anomaly 
in  jurisprudence  and  insult  to  justice  which  had  the 
impudence  to  call  itself  a  law.  Those  who  sympa- 
thized with  him  were  there  in  force ;  but  a  score 
or  two  of  foolish  Harvard  students  came  down  from 
the  college  to  the  hall  where  the  lecture  was  deliv- 
ered, determined  to  assert  "the  rights  of  the  South," 
and  to  preserve  the  threatened  Union  of  the  States. 
They  were  the  rowdiest,  noisiest,  most  brainless  set 
of  young  gentlemen  that  ever  pretended  to  be  en- 
gaged in   studying  "  the  humanities "  at  the   chief 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.        141 

university  of  the  country.  Their  only  arguments 
were  hisses  and  groans,  whenever  the  most  illustri- 
ous of  American  men  of  letters  uttered  an  opinion 
which  expressed  the  general  opinion  of  the  civilized 
world.  If  he  quoted  Coke,  Holt,  Blackstone,  Mans- 
field, they  hissed  all  these  sages  of  the  law  because 
their  judgments  came  from  the  illegal  lips  of  Emer- 
son. It  was  curious  to  watch  him,  as  at  each  point 
he  made  he  paused  to  let  the  storm  of  hisses  sub- 
side. The  noise  was  something  he  had  never  heard 
before  ;  there  was  a  queer,  quizzical,  squirrel-like  or 
bird-like  expression  in  his  eye  as  he  calmly  looked 
round  to  see  what  strange  human  animals  were 
present  to  make  such  sounds ;  and  when  he  pro- 
ceeded to  utter  another  indisputable  truth,  and  it 
was  responded  to  by  another  chorus  of  hisses,  he 
seemed  absolutely  to  enjoy  the  new  sensation  he 
experienced,  and  waited  for  these  signs  of  disappro- 
bation to  stop  altogether  before  he  resumed  his  dis- 
course. The  experience  was  novel ;  still  there  was 
not  the  slightest  tremor  in  his  voice,  not  even  a 
trace  of  the  passionate  resentment  which  a  speaker 
under  such  circumstances  and  impediments  usually 
feels,  and  which  urges  him  into  the  cheap  retort 
about  serpents,  but  a  quiet  waiting  for  the  time 
when  he  should  be  allowed  to  go  on  with  the  next 
sentence.  During  the  whole  evening  he  never  uttered 
a  word  which  was  not  written  down  in  the  manu- 
script from  which  he  read.  Many  of  us  at  the  time 
urged  Emerson  to  publish  the  lecture.     Ten  or  fifteen 


142  SOME  KECOLLECTIONS  OF 

years  after,  when  he  was  selecting  material  for  a 
new  volume  of  Essays,  I  entreated  him  to  include  in 
it  the  old  lecture  at  Cambridgeport ;  but  he,  after 
deliberation,  refused,  feeling  probably  that,  being 
written  under  the  impulse  of  the  passion  of  the  day, 
it  was  no  fit  and  fair  summary  of  the  characters  of 
the  statesmen  he  assailed.  Of  one  passage  in  the 
lecture  I  preserve  a  vivid  remembrance.  After  af- 
firming that  the  eternal  law  of  righteousness,  which 
rules  all  created  things,  nullified  the  enactment  of 
Congress,  and  after  citing  the  opinions  of  several 
magnates  of  jurisprudence  that  immoral  laws  are 
void  and  of  no  effect,  he  slowly  added,  in  a  scorch- 
ing and  biting  irony  of  tone  which  no  words  can 
describe,  "  but  still  a  little  Episcopalian  clergyman 
assured  me  yesterday  that  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law 
must  be  obeyed  and  enforced."  After  the  lapse  of 
thirty  years,  the  immense  humor  of  bringing  all 
the  forces  of  nature,  all  the  principles  of  religion, 
and  all  the  decisions  of  jurists  to  bear  with  their 
Atlas  weight  on  the  shoulders  of  one  poor  little 
conceited  clergyman  to  crush  him  to  atoms,  and  he 
in  his  innocence  not  conscious  of  it,  makes  me 
laugh  now  as  all  the  audience  laughed  then,  the 
belligerent  Harvard  students  included. 

Emerson's  good  sense  was  so  strong  that  it  always 
seemed  to  be  specially  awakened  in  the  company  of 
those  who  were  most  in  sympathy  with  his  loftiest 
thinking.  Thus  when  "  the  radical  philosophers " 
were  gathered  one  evening  at  his  house,  the  conver- 


RALPH  WALDO  EMEESON.  143 

sation  naturally  turned  on  the  various  schemes  of 
benevolent  people  to  reform  the  world.  Each  per- 
son present  had  a  panacea  to  cure  all  the  distempers 
of  society.  For  hours  the  talk  ran  on  ;  and  before 
bed-thnc  came,  all  the  sin  and  misery  of  the  world 
had  been  apparently  expelled  from  it,  and  our  planet 
was  reformed  and  transformed  into  an  abode  of 
human  angels,  and  virtue  and  happiness  were  the 
lot  of  each  human  being.  Emerson  listened,  but 
was  sparing  of  speech.  Probably  he  felt,  with  La- 
mennais,  that  if  facts  did  not  resist  thoughts,  the 
earth  would  in  a  short  time  become  uninhabitable. 
At  any  rate,  he  closed  the  sSance  with  the  remark : 
"  A  few  of  us  old  codgers  meet  at  the  fireside  on  a 
pleasant  evening,  and  in  thought  and  hope  career, 
balloon-like,  over  the  whole  universe  of  matter  and 
mind,  finding  no  resistance  to  our  theories,  because 
we  have,  in  the  sweet  delirium  of  our  thinking,  none 
of  those  obstructive  facts  which  face  the  practical 
reformer  the  moment  he  takes  a  single  forward  step ; 
then  we  go  to  bed,  and  the  pity  of  it  is  we  wake 
up  in  the  morning  feeling  that  we  are  the  same  poor 
old  imbeciles  we  were  before  ! " 

A  transcendentalist  is  sometimes  compelled,  by 
what  Cowley  calls  "the  low  conveniencies  of  fate," 
to  subordinate  the  principles  of  his  system  of  thought 
to  the  practical  exigency  of  the  hour.  A  curious  il- 
lustration of  this  fact  occurred,  some  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  ago,  in  the  early  days  of  the  "  Saturday  Club." 
After  some  preliminary  skirmishing,  Emerson  asked 


144  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

Agassiz  to  give  him  a  short  exposition  of  his  leading 
ideas  as  a  naturalist  in  respect  to  what  was  known 
of  the  genesis  of  things.  Agassiz,  in  his  vehement, 
rapid  way,  began  at  the  microscopic  "  cell,"  beyond 
which  no  discovered  instrument  of  investigation 
could  go,  and  proceeded  to  show  the  gradual  ascent 
from  this  "  cell "  to  the  highest  forms  of  animal  life. 
He  took  about  half  an  hour  in  making  his  condensed 
statement,  and  then  Emerson's  turn  began.  "  But, 
Mr.  Agassiz,  I  see  that  all  your  philosophy  is  under 
the  law  of  succession ;  it  is  genealogical ;  it  is  based 
on  the  reality  of  time.  But  you  must  know  that  some 
of  us  believe  with  Kant  that  time  is  merely  a  sub- 
jective form  of  human  thought,  having  no  objective 
existence."  Then  suddenly  taking  out  his  watch, 
and  learning  that  he  had  only  fifteen  minutes  to  get 
to  the  Fitchburg  Railroad  in  order  to  be  in  "  time  " 
to  catch  the  last  train  to  Concord  on  that  after- 
noon, he  took  his  hat,  swiftly  donned  his  overcoat, 
and  as  he  almost  rushed  from  the  room  he  assured 
Agassiz  that  he  would  discuss  the  subject  at  some 
other  "  time,"  when  he  was  less  pressed  by  his 
engagements  at  home.  For  years  afterward,  when 
the  transcendentalist  met  the  naturalist  at  the  club, 
I  watched  in  vain  for  a  recurrence  of  the  contro- 
versy. I  do  not  think  it  was  ever  re-opened  between 
them. 

Many  of  Emerson's  friends  and  acquaintances 
thought  that  his  sense  of  humor  was  almost  as  keen  as 
his  sense  of  Beauty  and  his  sense  of  Right.     I  do  not 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  146 

remember  an  instance  in  my  conversations  with  him, 
when  the  question  came  up  of  his  being  not  under- 
stood, —  or,  what  is  worse,  misunderstood  by  the 
public, — that  he  did  not  treat  the  matter  in  an  exqui- 
sitely humorous  way,  telling  the  story  of  his  defeats 
in  making  himself  comprehended  by  the  audience  or 
the  readers  he  addressed  as  if  the  misapprehensions 
of  his  meaning  were  properly  subjects  of  mirth,  in 
which  he  could  heartily  join.  This  is  the  test  of  the 
humorist,  that  he  can  laugh  with  those  who  laugh 
at  him.  For  example,  on  one  occasion  I  recollect 
saying  that  of  all  his  college  addresses  I  thought  the 
best  was  that  on  "  The  Method  of  Nature,"  delivered 
before  the  Society  of  the  Adelphi,  in  Waterville  Col- 
lege, Maine,  August  11,  1841.  He  then  gave  me  a 
most  amusing  account  of  the  circumstances  under 
which  the  oration  was  delivered.  It  seems  that 
after  conceiving  the  general  idea  of  the  address,  he 
banished  himself  to  Nantasket  Beach,  secluded  him- 
self for  a  fortnight  in  a  room  in  a  public  house 
the  windows  of  which  looked  out  on  the  ocean,  mov- 
ing from  his  chamber  and  writing-desk  only  to  take 
early  morning  and  late  evening  walks  on  the  beach ; 
and  thought,  at  the  end,  he  had  produced  something 
which  was  worthy  of  being  listened  to  even  by  the 
Society  of  the  Adelphi.  At  that  time  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  journey  to  Waterville  had  to  be  made 
by  stage.  He  arrived  late  in  the  evening,  travel- 
worn  and  tired  out,  when  almost  all  the  sober  in- 
habitants of  Waterville  had  gone  to  bed.     It  appeared 

10 


146  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

that  there  was  some  doubt  as  to  the  particular  citi- 
zen's house  at  which  he  was  to  pass  the  night.  "  The 
stage-drivoi',"  said  Emerson,  "  stopped  at  one  door, 
rapped  loudly ;  a  window  was  opened,  something  in 
a  night-gown  asked  what  he  wanted;  the  stage- 
driver  replied  that  he  had  inside  a  man  who  said  he 
was  to  deliver  the  lit-ra-rye  oration  to-morrow,  and 
thought  he  was  to  stop  there ;  but  the  night-gown 
disappeared,  with  the  chilling  remark  that  he  was 
not  to  stay  at  his  house.  Then  we  went  to  another 
and  still  another  dwelling,  rapped,  saw  similar  night- 
gowns and  heard  similar  voices  at  similar  raised 
windows ;  and  it  was  only  after  repeated  disturb- 
ances of  the  peace  of  the  place  that  the  right  house 
was  hit,  where  I  found  a  hospitable  reception.  The 
next  day  I  delivered  my  oration,  which  was  heard 
with  cold,  silent,  unresponsive  attention,  in  which 
there  seemed  to  be  a  continuous  unuttered  rebuke 
and  protest.  The  services  were  closed  by  prayer, 
and  the  good  man  who  prayed,  prayed  for  the  ora- 
tor, but  also  warned  his  hearers  against  heresies  and 
wild  notions,  which  appeared  to  me  of  that  kind  for 
which  I  was  held  responsible.  The  address  was 
really  written  in  the  heat  and  happiness  of  what  I 
thought  a  real  inspiration ;  but  all  the  warmth  was 
extinguished  in  that  lake  of  iced  water."  The  con- 
versation occurred  so  long  ago  that  I  do  not  pretend 
to  give  Emerson's  exact  words,  but  this  was  the  sub- 
stance of  his  ludicrous  statement  of  the  rapture  with 
which  he  had  written  what  was  so  frigidly  received. 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  147 

He  seemed  intensely  to  enjoy  the  fun  of  his  material 
discomforts  and  his  spiritual  discomfiture. 

Emerson  had  some  strange  tastes  and  some  equally 
strange  distastes  in  regard  to  poets.  Usually  his 
criticism  was  wonderfully  acute  and  accurate,  com- 
pressing into  a  few  significant  words  what  other 
critics  would  fail  to  convey  in  an  elaborate  analysis. 
He  darted,  by  a  combination  of  insight  and  instinct, 
to  the  exact  point  in  a  poet's  writings  where  the 
poetry  in  him  was  best  embodied  and  expressed; 
and  his  reading  of  the  passages  which  had  most  im- 
pressed him  excelled  that  of  the  most  accomplished 
professional  elocutionist  I  ever  listened  to.  But  he 
never  could  endure  Shelley,  and  declared  that  if  the 
objections  of  practical  men  to  poetry  rested  on  such 
poets  as  Shelley,  he  should  cordially  agree  with  them. 
He  admitted,  of  course,  the  beauty  of  "  The  Skylark  " 
and  "  The  Cloud ; "  but  as  an  apostle  of  hope  and 
health  and  cheer,  he  could  not  pardon  the  note  of 
lamentation  which  runs  through  Shelley's  poetry,  and 
thought  that  his  gifts  of  imagination  and  melody,  re- 
markable as  they  were,  w^ere  no  atonement  for  his 
unmanly  wailing  and  sobbing  over  the  ills  of  exist- 
ence. A  poet,  he  said,  should  invigorate,  not  depress, 
the  soul.  It  was  in  vain  to  tell  him  that  such  ethereal 
powers  of  imagination  and  sentiment  as  Shelley  pos- 
sessed should  be  considered  apart  from  the  direction 
they  happened  to  take,  owing  to  the  unfortunate  cir- 
cumstances of  his  life.  No ;  he  would  discard  such 
sick  souls  from  his  sympathy,  as  he  would  discard  all 


148  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

sick  bodies.  He  showed  always  a  comical  disgust  of 
sick  people  generally.  Everybody  who  heard  his  lec- 
ture called  ^'  Considerations  by  the  Way,"  must  remem- 
ber the  peculiar  force  and  bitterness  with  which  be 
described  sickness  "  as  a  cannibal  which  eats  up  all 
the  life  and  youth  it  can  lay  hold  of,  and  absorbs  its 
own  sons  and  daughters.  I  figure  it  as  a  pale,  wail- 
ing, distracted  phantom,  absolutely  selfish,  heedless 
of  what  is  good  and  great,  attentive  to  its  own  sensa- 
tions, losing  its  soul,  and  afflicting  other  souls  with 
meanness  and  mopings,  and  with  ministrations  to  its 
voracity  of  trifles.  Dr.  Johnson  severely  said, '  Every 
man  is  a  rascal  as  soon  as  he  is  sick.' "  And  then  he 
went  on  to  say  that  we  should  give  the  sick  every  aid, 
but  not  give  them  "  ourselves."  Then  followed  a 
cruelly  wise  remark  which  shocked  many  in  the  au- 
dience, and  the  real  import  of  which  was  taken  only 
by  a  few.  "  I  once  asked  a  clergyman  in  a  country 
town  who  were  his  companions  ?  what  men  of  ability 
he  saw  ?  He  replied  that  he  spent  his  time  with  the 
sick  and  the  dying.  I  said  he  seemed  to  me  to  need 
quite  other  company,  and  all  the  more  that  he  had 
this ;  for  if  people  were  sick  and  dying  to  any  purpose, 
we  would  leave  all  and  go  to  them,  but,  as  far  as  I  had 
observed,  they  were  as  frivolous  as  the  rest,  and  some- 
times much  more  frivolous."  Every  one  who  has  ob- 
served how  many  conscientious  clergymen  are  con- 
verted into  nerveless  moral  valetudinarians,  losing  all 
power  of  communicating  healthy  moral  life,  by  con- 
stantly acting  as  spiritual  nurses  to  the  sick,  com- 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  149 

plaining,  and  ever-dying  but  never  dead  members  of 
their  parishes,  must  acknowledge  the  half-truth  in  this 
apparently  harsh  statement. 

The  feeling  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  teacher  of 
his  fellow-men,  whether  preacher,  poet,  romancer,  or 
philosopher,  to  console  by  cheering  and  invigorating 
them,  entered  into  all  Emerson's  criticism.  When  the 
"  Scarlet  Letter,"  in  many  respects  the  greatest  ro- 
mance of  the  century,  was  published,  he  conceded  that 
it  was  a  work  of  power ;  "  but,"  he  said  to  me,  with 
a  repulsive  shrug  of  the  shoulders  as  he  uttered  the 
word,  "  it  is  ghastly."  It  seemed  to  me  that "  ghostly  " 
would  be  a  more  truthful  characterization  of  it ;  but 
it  was  impossible  to  remove  from  his  mind  the  general 
impression  any  book  had  left  on  it  by  arguments. 
"  Ghastly  !  "  he  repeated  —  "  ghastly  !  "  He  seemed 
quietly  impregnable  to  any  considerations  respecting 
the  masterly  imaginative  analysis  which  Hawthorne 
had  displayed  in  depicting  the  spiritual  moods  of  his 
guilty  hero  and  heroine,  and  his  keen  perception  of 
the  outlying  spiritual  laws  which,  being  violated  in 
their  sin,  reacted  with  such  terrible  force  in  their 
punishment.  The  book  left  an  unpleasant  impression 
on  him ;  that  was  enough,  as  it  was  enough  to  lead 
him  to  condemn  Goethe's  "  Faust." 

In  judging  of  works  of  immensely  less  importance, 
which  only  excited  his  ridicule,  his  irony  was  often 
delicious.  Then  there  were  popular  books  whose 
daily  sale  exceeded  that  of  all  his  own  volumes  in  ten 
years ;  these  he  spoke  of  with  admirable  humor  and 


150  SOME  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

good-humor.  Talking  with  him  once  on  the  character 
of  the  first  Napoleon,  I  asked  him  if  he  had  read  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Abbott's  history  of  the  exploits  and  objects 
of  the  Emperor.  "  Yes,"  he  dryly  answered ;  "  and  it 
has  given  to  me  an  altogether  original  idea  of  that 
notable  man.  It  seems  to  teach  that  the  great  object 
of  Napoleon  in  all  his  wars  was  to  establish  in  be- 
nighted Europe  our  New  England  system  of  Sunday- 
schools.  A  book  like  that  is  invaluable ;  it  revolu- 
tionizes all  our  notions  of  historical  men." 

In  such  recollections  of  Emerson  as  I  have  here  re- 
corded there  has  been,  of  course,  no  attempt  to  portray 
his  character  as  a  whole,  but  simply  to  exhibit  some 
aspects  of  it.  There  was  a  side  of  his  nature,  or  rather 
the  very  centre  of  his  nature  —  his  "  heart  of  heart " 
—  on  which  I  suppose  even  his  intimate  friends 
(with  whom  I  do  not  presume  to  rank  myself)  would 
speak  with  a  certain  reserve.  Dr.  Bartol,  one  of 
these  friends,  whose  beautiful  tribute  to  Emerson  has 
been  published,  hints  of  the  loneliness  of  thought  in 
which  a  large  portion  of  his  life  was  probably  passed. 
The  incommunicable  elements  in  Emerson's  spiritual 
experience  must,  indeed,  have  exceeded  what  he  felt 
himself  capable  of  communicating,  not  to  speak  of 
that  portion  he  was  indisposed  to  communicate.  In 
one  of  his  most  characteristic  essays  there  is  a  preg- 
nant sentence  in  which  he  declares  that  in  its  high- 
est moods  "the  soul  gives  itself,  alone,  original,  and 
pure,  to  the  Lonely,  Original,  and  Pure,  who  on  that  con- 
dition gladly  inhabits,  leads,  and  speaks  through  it." 


KALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  151 

This  mystic  communion  of  the  soul  with  its  source  had 
with  him  a  solemnity  so  sacred  that  it  must  needs  be 
secret ;  it  either  exalted  his  mortal  nature  into  a  "  beati- 
tude past  utterance,"  or  depressed  it  with  ominous  mis- 
givings and  "  obstinate  questionings  "  which  could  find 
no  adequate  outlet  in  words ;  and  though  we  detect  in 
the  noblest  passages  of  his  writings  traces  of  this  im- 
mediate personal  communion  with  the  Highest  and  the 
Divine,  it  is  doubtful  if  he  ever  spoke  of  it  to  his  nearest 
relatives  and  friends.  In  this  Emerson  differed  from 
most  men  of  profound  religious  genius,  who  are  some- 
times garrulous  on  those  points  where  he  was  inexora- 
bly mute.  He  never  exclaimed,  as  other  pious  souls 
have  exclaimed,  "  See  what  the  Lord  has  done  for  me .'" 
His  reticence  was  the  modesty  of  spiritual  manliness. 
What  he  felt  on  such  high  matters,  he  felt  to  be  inde- 
scribable and  unutterable  ;  but  how  awful  must  have 
been  at  times  his  sense  of  spiritual  loneliness,  his  lips 
austerely  shut  even  when  the  closest,  dearest,  and  most 
trusted  companions  of  his  soul  delicately  hinted  their 
wish  he  would  speak  ;  but  he  died  and  made  no  sign. 

Still,  at  just  one  remove  from  the  sacred  secrecy 
of  his  inmost  individual  consciousness  and  experi- 
ence, he  is  ever  found  to  be  the  frankest  of  writers. 
Matthew  Arnold  has  revived  a  phrase  originally  used 
by  Swift  in  his  "  Battle  of  the  Books,"  and  made  it 
stand  as  a  mark  of  the  perfection  of  intellectual 
character.  It  is  curious  that  this  phrase  "  sweet- 
ness and  light "  should  have  been  uttered  by  the 
greatest  cynical  apostle  of  bitterness  and  gloom  who 


152  SOME  KECOLLECTIONS  OF 

has  left  a  record  of  his  genius  in  English  literature,  — 
and  also  uttered,  so  far  as  the  side  he  took  is  con- 
cerned, in  an  ignominious  literary  brawl,  in  which 
he  was  the  champion  of  Temple,  Boyle,  and  Atter- 
bury,  against  Bentley,  the  greatest  scholar  in  Europe. 
Bentley  was  of  course  victor  in  the  contest,  even 
in  the  opinion  of  all  candid  scholars  at  first  opposed 
to  him. 

But  "  sweetness  and  light "  are  precious  and  in- 
spiring only  so  far  as  they  express  the  essential  sweet- 
ness of  the  disposition  of  the  thinker,  and  the  essen- 
tial illuminating  power  of  his  intelligence.  Emerson's 
greatness  came  from  his  character.  Sweetness  and 
light  streamed  from  him  because  they  were  in  him. 
In  everything  he  thought,  wrote,  and  did  we  feel 
the  presence  of  a  personality  as  vigorous  and  brave 
as  it  was  sweet ;  and  the  particular  radical  thought 
he  at  any  time  expressed  derived  its  power  to  ani- 
mate and  illuminate  other  minds  from  the  might  of 
the  manhood  which  was  felt  to  be  within  and  behind 
it.  To  "  sweetness  and  light "  he  therefore  added 
the  prime  quality  of  fearless  manliness. 

If  the  force  of  Emerson's  character  was  thus  inex- 
tricably blended  with  the  force  of  all  his  faculties  of 
intellect  and  imagination,  and  the  refinement  of  all 
his  sentiments,  we  have  still  to  account  for  the  pe- 
culiarities of  his  genius,  and  to  answer  the  question. 
Why  do  we  instinctively  apply  the  epithet  "  Emer- 
sonian" to  every  characteristic  passage  in  his  writ- 
ings ?     We  are  told  that  he  was  the  last  in  a  long 


IIALPH  WALDO  EMERSON.  153 

line  of  clergymen,  his  ancestors,  and  that  the  mod- 
ern doctrine  of  heredity  accounts  for  the  impressive 
emphasis  he  laid  on  the  moral  sentiment;  but  that 
does  not  solve  the  puzzle  why  he  unmistakably  dif- 
fered in  his  nature  and  genius  from  all  other  Emer- 
sons.  An  imaginary  genealogical  chart  of  descent 
connecting  him  with  Confucius  or  Gotama  would  be 
more  satisfactory.  At  the  time  he  acquired  noto- 
riety but  had  not  yet  achieved  fame,  it  was  confi- 
dently asserted  in  all  Boston  circles  that  his  brother 
Charles  —  the  "  calm,  chaste  scholar  "  celebrated  by 
Holmes  —  was  greatly  his  superior  in  ability,  and 
would,  had  he  not  died  early,  have  entirely  eclipsed 
Ealph.  Emerson  himself,  the  most  generous  and 
loving  of  brothers,  always  inclined  to  this  opinion. 
But  there  is  not  an  atom  of  evidence  that  Charles, 
had  he  lived,  would  have  produced  works  which 
would  be  read  by  a  choice  company  of  thinkers  and 
scholars  all  over  the  world,  which  would  be  trans- 
lated into  all  the  languages  of  Europe,  and  would 
be  prized  in  London  and  Edinburgh,  in  Berlin  and 
Vienna,  in  Rome  and  Paris,  as  warmly  as  they  were 
in  Boston  and  New  York.  What  distinguishes  the 
Emerson  was  his  exceptional  genius  and  cliaracter,  — 
that  something  in  him  which  separated  him  from  all 
other  Emersons,  as  it  separated  him  from  all  other 
eminent  men  of  letters,  and  impressed  every  intelli- 
gent reader  with  the  feeling  that  he  was  not  only 
"  original,  but  aboriginal."  Some  traits  of  his  mind 
and  character  may  be  traced  back  to  his  ancestors, 


154  RECOLLECTIONS  OF  EMERSON. 

but  what  doctrine  of  heredity  can  give  us  the  genesis 
of  his  genius  ?  Indeed,  the  safest  course  to  pursue  is 
to  quote  his  own  words,  and  despairingly  confess 
that  it  is  the  nature  of  genius  "  to  spring,  like  the 
rainbow  daughter  of  Wonder,  from  the  invisible ;  to 
abolish  the  past,  and  refuse  all  history." 


MOTLEY,  THE   HISTORIAN. 

In  the  satires  of  Dryden  and  Pope,  the  god  or  god- 
dess of  Dulness  descends  on  some  tenant  of  Grub 
Street,  and  after  congratulating  him  on  his  success 
in  making  stupidity  popular,  commonly  ends  with 
the  injunction,  "  Be  thou  dull ! "  The  meaning  is, 
that  he  who  has  raised  himself  to  notoriety  by  feeble 
thoughts  embodied  in  bad  verses  should  continue 
true  to  that  power  whose  aid  has  lifted  him  to  a 
transient  eminence.  In  this  way  Dryden  and  Pope 
wrought  their  revenges  on  what  they  called  the 
dunces,  —  on  Flecknoe  and  Shadwell,  on  Gibber  and 
Theobald,  —  in  short,  on  all  authors  who  were  the 
enemies  of  Mr.  Dryden  and  Mr.  Pope.  If  we  could 
conceive  of  some  more  benignant  deity  descending 
on  the  cradle  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  his  injunc- 
tion to  the  infant  would  undoubtedly  have  been  this : 
"  Be  thou  bright !  "  It  is  certainly  true  that  Holmes 
has  never  been  able  to  escape  from  the  fate  which 
doomed  him  to  be  brilliant.  He  has  made  desper- 
ate attempts  to  be  dull,  for  he  has  written  a  score 
of  medical  addresses,  in  which  the  latest  results  of 
medical  discovery  have  been  stated  with  all  due  re- 
gard to  those  terrible  Latin  names  of  diseases  which 


156  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

frighten  half  to  death  the  tenants  of  most  sick-beds ; 
but  into  these  addresses  he  has  insinuated  strokes 
of  wit  and  humor  which  force  smiles  or  laughter 
from  those  healthy  men  who  are  yet  to  know  the 
awful  significance  of  the  aches  and  pains  which 
modern  medicine  is  exerting  all  its  skill  to  alle\date. 
On  the  philosophy  of  the  mind,  as  connected  with 
physiology,  he  has  shown  himself  one  of  the  boldest 
and  most  original  thinkers  on  facts  which  the  latest 
science  has  established.  The  books  in  which  these 
facts  and  the  logical  inferences  from  them  are  stated 
at  length  are  to  the  unprofessional  reader  the  dullest 
of  all  books ;  yet  as  Autocrat,  Poet,  and  Professor  of 
the  Breakfast  Table  he  has  made  them  fascinating  to 
thousands  of  readers  whom  the  elaborate  treatises 
of  Maudsley  and  Carpenter  would  disgust.  His  little 
octodecimo  on  the  "  Mechanism  of  Morals  "  is  a  mas- 
terpiece of  its  kind,  condensing  the  result  of  his  labo- 
rious professional  life  in  one  of  the  most  charming 
contributions  ever  made  to  practical  ethics.  As  a 
serious  poet  the  stream  of  his  sentiment  flows  over 
golden  sands,  sparkling  with  pathos, —  if  such  a 
phrase  can  be  allowed ;  and  in  those  verses  in  which 
he  gives  full  play  to  the  ludicrous  eccentricities  of 
his  fancy  and  imagination  he  is  never  a  mere  versi- 
fier of  jokes,  but  always  a  witty  and  humorous  poet. 
In  his  last  work,  the  biography  of  his  friend  Motley, 
abounding  as  it  does  in  felicitous  strokes  of  char- 
acterization, as  well  as  in  calm,  judicial  estimates 
of  evidence,  he   never  loses  his  old   attractiveness. 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  157 

Indeed,  whatever  may  be  said  of  Dr.  Holmes's  views 
on  some  of  the  deepest  subjects  which  can  command 
the  attention  of  thoughtful  minds,  nobody  ever  ac- 
cused him  of  being  dull.  The  self-imposed  reti- 
cences in  this  charming  sketch  of  Motley's  career 
do  not  prevent  him  from  piquant  disclosures  which 
present  the  historian  of  liberty  in  his  true  character 
as  a  singularly  brave,  honest,  and  noble  gentleman. 
The  man  had  the  usual  infirmities  of  men ;  but  that 
he  was  a  grand  specimen  of  cultured  American  man- 
hood, as  well  as  a  notable  example  of  American  in- 
telligence, cannot  be  doubted  by  anybody  who  enjoyed 
the  pleasure  of  his  acquaintance,  or  by  anybody  who 
has  studied  his  works.  Manhood  —  free,  resolute, 
intrepid,  and  somewhat  disdainful  manhood  —  is  the 
impression  of  Motley  derived  from  the  reading  of  his 
histories ;  and  it  was  eminently  the  same  impres- 
sion which  familiar  knowledge  of  him  stamped  on 
the  minds  of  his  friends.  Dr.  Holmes's  biography 
reflects  the  feelings  and  judgments  of  all  these 
friends,  whether  in  the  United  States  or  in  Europe. 

John  Lothrop  Motley  was  born  in  Dorchester, 
Massachusetts,  April  15,  1814.  His  biographer  tells 
us  that  the  historian's  life  was  saved  a  hundred 
years  before  he  was  born.  One  of  his  maternal  an- 
cestors, a  child  living  in  Haverhill,  Massachusetts, 
was  hidden  by  a  housemaid  under  a  wash-tub  in  the 
cellar  of  her  father's  house  when  it  was  assailed  by 
Indians  in  1708.  The  savages  missed  their  prey  by 
this  comical  contrivance,  and  Motley  thus  became  a 


158  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTOEIAN. 

possible  human  being  a  hundred  and  six  years  before 
he  entered  life.  His  father  was  a  prosperous  Boston 
merchant  who  had  Irish  blood  in  his  veins,  and  his 
mother  was  a  daughter  of  that  race  of  Lothrop  which 
has  given  so  many  excellent  Protestant  clergymen 
to  New  England  churches.  Thomas  Motley,  the 
father,  is  still  remembered  in  Boston  as  one  of  the 
finest  of  that  old  school  of  commercial  men  who 
were  prominent  in  society  as  well  as  in  commerce, 
and  in  whom  the  sagacity  of  the  merchant  was  com- 
bined with  the  manners  and  the  sentiments  of  the 
accomplished  and  genial  gentleman.  The  mother, 
by  the  testimony  of  all  who  knew  her,  was  remark- 
able for  her  somewhat  regal  beauty,  for  "  the  charm 
of  her  serene  and  noble  presence,"  and  for  the  ad- 
mirable way  in  which  she  performed  all  the  duties 
of  a  matron.  The  son  .was  one  of  those  pre-emi- 
nently handsome  boys  who,  as  the  world  goes,  seem 
doomed  to  be  ruined  because  fortune  has  saved  them 
from  laboring  for  a  living,  and  Nature  has  been  prod- 
igal in  lavishing  upon  them  physical  beauty.  When 
Motley  had  grown  to  man's  estate.  Lady  Byron  de- 
clared that  he  more  resembled  her  husband  than 
any  person  she  had  ever  met ;  but  Wendell  Phillips, 
his  playmate  and  classmate,  objects  to  this  opinion 
on  the  ground  that  Motley  was  handsomer  than 
Byron.  And  here  it  may  be  well  to  state  that  Mr. 
Phillips,  though  the  greatest  iconoclast  of  institu- 
tions and  reputations  that  modern  New  England  has 
ever  seen,  has  always  been  exceedingly   tender  to 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  159 

Motley,  though  Motley  must  liave  often  offended  him 
by  the  course  he  took  in  political  affairs.  It  may 
also  be  affirmed  that  Motley  never  said  a  harsh 
word  of  Phillips.  The  affection  between  them  was 
so  close  that  though  they  took  widely  divergent 
roads,  which  led  eventually  however  to  the  same 
goal,  each  instinctively  recognized  the  integrity  of 
the  other,  while  they  seemed  diametrically  opposed 
in  methods  as  well  as  in  aims.  There  can  be  no 
clearer  evidence  than  this  of  Motley's  strong  hold 
on  the  hearts  of  all  his  classmates  during  the  "  ups 
and  downs"  of  his  subsequent  career. 

The  beautiful  boy  was  saved  from  being  spoiled  by 
a  combination  in  his  nature  of  an  immense  intel- 
lectual ambition  with  a  corresponding  self-distrust. 
To  the  end  of  his  life  he  w^as  consumed  with  a  desire 
to  perform  great  things,  and  to  the  end  of  his  life 
he  was  painfully  sensible  that  he  had  not  come  up 
to  his  lofty  ideal.  Like  many  other  young  men  of 
genius,  he  was  desultory  in  his  studies,  and  in  school 
and  college  never  reached  the  standard  of  "  the  good 
boy"  or  the  diligent  student.  His  intellect  devel- 
oped by  a  process  of  intellectual  irritation.  A  cer- 
tain swiftness  of  mind,  catching  quickly  at  the  spirit 
of  what  he  studied,  but  neglecting  the  orderly  tech- 
nicalities which  denote  the  progress  of  a  student  in 
his  class,  distinguished  his  course  through  school 
and  college.  All  his  schoolmates  and  classmates  had 
immense  confidence  in  the  brilliancy  of  his  talents, 
but  his  "  grade "  did  not  correspond  to  his  reputa- 


160  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

tion.  His  fellow-students  were  also  sometimes  of- 
fended by  the  almost  cynical  haughtiness  of  his 
behavior.  Still  his  reserve  would  so  often  give  way 
to  a  hilarious  sympathy  with  their  pursuits  that  he 
never  lost  popularity  amid  all  the  eccentricities  of 
seclusion  in  which  he  indulged.  His  great  distinc- 
tion, in  which  he  excelled  all  his  playmates  and 
classmates,  was  his  knowledge  of  foreign  languages. 
His  early  familiarity  with  German  impressed  even 
George  Bancroft  while  Motley  was  a  boy  in  his 
school  at  Round  Hill;  and  afterward,  when  Motley 
was  a  student  in  Harvard  College,  an  address  by 
him  on  Goethe  in  one  of  the  college  exhibitions  was 
so  good  as  to  induce  such  a  trained  scholar  as  Joseph 
Cogswell  to  send  it  to  Madame  Goethe.  Her  reply 
was  significant.  "  I  wish,"  she  said,  "  to  see  the 
first  book  that  young  man  will  write." 

After  leaving  Harvard  College  he  spent  two  years 
in  Europe,  studying  in  the  universities  both  of  Berlin 
and  Gottingen.  In  the  latter  university  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  a  young  man  who  afterward  became 
the  greatest  of  modern  statesmen,  —  Bismarck,  —  and 
the  acquaintance  ripened  into  a  personal  friendship 
which  continued  until  Motley's  death.  Dr.  Holmes 
prints  a  letter  from  Bismarck's  secretary,  in  which  this 
friendship  is  recorded  in  cordial  terms.  "  The  most 
striking  feature  of  his  handsome  and  delicate  appear- 
ance," says  Bismarck,  "  was  uncommonly  large  and 
beautiful  eyes.  He  never  entered  a  drawing-room 
without  exciting  the  curiosity  and  sympathy  of  the 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  161 

ladies."  The  biographer  does  not  add  that  as  university 
students  they  were  once  arrested  and  lodged  in  the 
same  guard-house  by  a  few  superserviceable  police- 
men of  Berlin,  on  the  charge  of  disturbing  the  peace 
of  that  city.  The  amount  of  tlie  offence  consisted 
in  singing  a  little  too  loudly  as  they  were  returning 
from  a  students'  festival.  In  the  after  meetings  of 
Bismarck  and  Motley,  when  the  former  had  become 
a  disturber  of  the  peace  indeed,  this  occurrence  prob- 
ably was  an  enjoyable  topic  of  conversation.  Being 
at  the  time  "  fellow-lodgers  in  the  house  No.  161 
Friedrich  Strasse,"  living  in  the  closest  intimacy, 
"  sharing  meals  and  out-door  exercise,"  they  doubt- 
less contrived  to  endure  that  night's  confinement 
with  philosophical  composure. 

On  his  return  to  the  United  States  in  1834,  Motley 
gave  no  extraordinary  evidence  of  the  wisdom  ac- 
quired by  his  German  studies,  except  his  marriage, 
in  1837,  to  the  beautiful  and  intelligent  Mary  Ben- 
jamin,—  a  lady  beloved  by  everybody  who  knew  her, 
and  whom  he  may  be  said  to  have  won  as  his  wife 
against  a  score  of  brilliant  competitors.  Dr.  Holmes 
remarks  of  this  admirable  woman,  that  those  who 
remember  her  find  it  difficult  to  speak  of  her  amia- 
bility, her  sincerity,  her  frankness,  her  sister-like 
feeling  for  the  many  young  men  who  could  never 
aspire  to  be  her  lovers,  with  "  the  common  terms 
of  praise  they  award  to  the  good  and  the  lovely." 
Certainly  no  wife  of  a  man  of  letters  was  ever  more 
warmly  loved   or  more  deeply  mourned  by  her  hus- 

11 


162  MOTLEY,   THE  HISTORIAN. 

band.  While  she  lived  she  was  his  companion  in 
every  respect,  —  the  companion  of  his  intellect  as 
well  as  of  his  heart.  Indeed,  her  whole  life  was 
blended  with  his,  and  it  may  be  mentioned  as  one 
of  the  felicities  of  his  career,  as  far  as  his  happiness 
and  not  his  fame  was  concerned,  that  her  death  an- 
ticipated his  own  only  by  a  short  period.  The  in- 
tellectual irritability  of  the  husband,  never  satisfied 
with  what  he  had  done,  yet  feeling  that  there  was 
no  adequate  appreciation  in  some  of  the  social  circles 
in  which  he  moved  of  what  his  genius  and  toil  had  ac- 
complished, was  charmingly  contrasted  with  the  soft, 
sweet  manners  of  the  wife,  proud  of  the  just  glory 
of  her  husband,  yet  tolerant  of  the  ignorant  "  fashion- 
ables "  who  knew  him  to  be  a  celebrity,  but  were  as 
blind  to  the  patient  labor  as  to  the  vivid  genius  on 
which  the  celebrity  was  founded.  The  good  wife 
walked  by  his  side  through  life,  cheering  and  ani- 
mating him  in  all  his  noble  ambitions,  rejoicing  in 
the  successes  of  his  literary  and  diplomatic  career, 
while  she  softened  their  occasional  mortifications, 
and  never  losing  her  love  and  trust  and  pride  in 
him  until  they  were  parted  by  death.  Literary  his- 
tory has  no  more  beautiful  record  of  wifely  devotion. 
It  is  probable  that  even  he  never  fully  appreciated 
what  a  beneficent  angel  she  had  been  to  him,  until, 
broken  in  body  and  mind,  he  mourned  unavailingly 
over  her  grave. 

On   his   return  from   Germany  Motley  had   some 
vague  connection  with  the  profession  of  the  law,  as  it 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  163 

was  not  practised  in  the  city  of  Boston.  He  could 
not  even  boast,  as  Macaulay  boasted,  of  having  had 
one  client.  He  was  in  easy  circumstances,  a  brilliant 
member  of  the  best  Boston  society,  fortunate  in  his 
domestic  relations,  and  seemingly  doomed  to  be  an 
elegant  do-nothing,  sauntering  away  his  existence  in 
the  learned  idleness  of  such  students  as  read  books 
merely  to  gratify  their  intellectual  curiosity,  or  to 
gather  materials  for  animated  conversation  with  ama- 
teurs in  literature  as  indolent  as  themselves.  But  he 
was  really  impelled  all  this  time  by  an  almost  morbid 
literary  ambition,  which  found  its  first  expression  in 
a  kind  of  psychological  autobiography  wliich  he  called 
a  novel,  and  which  he  published  in  1839,  under  the 
title  of  "  Morton's  Hope."  The  failure  of  this  book 
was  complete  and  almost  ignominious,  in  spite  of 
many  admirable  passages  both  of  reflection  and  de- 
scription, the  merit  of  which  was  apparent  amid  all 
the  anarchy  of  the  narrative.  It  exhibited  in  an 
exaggerated  form  a  mental  defect  which  is  more  or 
less  visible  in  his  histories,  —  namely,  a  tendency  to 
treat  subordinate  details  with  such  fulness  and  rich- 
ness as  somewhat  to  interfere  with  a  clear  perception 
of  the  main  design.  In  "  Morton's  Hope  "  this  defect 
was  so  prominent  as  to  enable  scores  of  people,  who 
were  incompetent  to  write  any  half-dozen  of  its  bril- 
liant paragraphs,  to  sneer  at  the  work  as  a  whole. 
"  Have  you  heard,"  said  a  wit  of  the  family  of  Morton 
to  his  acquaintance,  "  that  our  friend  Motley's  failure 
is  '  Morton's  Hope '  ? "     Motley  himself  came  to  hate 


164  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

his  own  book  so  much  that  it  was  dangerous  to  refer 
to  it  in  his  presence.  What  he  probably  most  dis- 
liked in  it  was  the  compound  of  Byronism,  Bulwerism, 
and  Vivian  Grreyism  which  marked  its  general  spirit 
and  tone.  As  soon  as  a  true  scholar  strenuously 
devotes  himself  to  the  task  of  exploring  the  obscure 
records  of  history,  and  of  reproducing  the  great  men 
and  events  of  the  past,  he  feels  ashamed  of  giving 
emphasis  to  his  own  individual  caprices  of  thought 
and  emotion.  He  becomes  absorbed  in  the  contem- 
plation of  the  actual  wrongs  and  sufferings  of  man- 
kind, so  that  the  petty  grievances  of  his  own  lot  shrink 
and  shrivel  into  comparative  insignificance  as  viewed 
through  the  blaze  of  fires  that  have  consumed  heroes 
and  martyrs.  It  was  a  merciful  Providence  which 
led  Motley  to  select  for  the  hero  of  his  first  history 
William  the  Silent.  His  sensitiveness  so  apt  to  de- 
generate into  petulance,  his  self-assertion  so  strangely 
mingled  with  self-distrust,  ceased  to  vex  him  as  he 
came  into  daily  contact,  morally  and  mentally,  with 
the  character  of  such  a  miracle  of  fortitude  and  self- 
abnegation  as  the  first  William  of  Orange.  It  may 
here  be  added  that  in  this  forlorn  novel  of  "  Morton's 
Hope  "  Motley  indicated  that  early  passion  to  explore 
the  sources  of  history  which  afterward  impelled  him 
to  wander  over  Europe  in  search  of  original  materials 
for  the  histories  which  now  bear  his  name.  The 
dust  of  two  or  three  centuries  remained  undisturbed 
on  hundreds  of  important  manuscripts  in  European 
collections  until  it  was  rudely  scattered  by  this  inde- 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  165 

fatigable  American  student.  That  he  was  not  in- 
tellectually suffocated  by  the  dust  lie  had  raised 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  in  him  the  fine  instincts 
and  intelligence  of  the  artist  disposed  and  har- 
monized the  accumulations  and  discoveries  of  the 
drudge. 

In  1841  Motley  received  the  appointment  of  secre- 
tary of  legation  to  the  Russian  mission ;  but  after  a 
few  months'  residence  in  St.  Petersburg  he  resigned 
the  post  and  returned  to  Boston.  For  five  years  he 
was  engaged  in  a  variety  of  occupations,  among  which 
his  historical  novel  of  "  Merry  Mount "  may  be  spe- 
cially mentioned  as  an  attempt  to  make  his  historical 
studies  available  for  the  purpose  of  romantic  creation. 
"  Merry  Mount "  (not  published  until  1849),  though 
it  obtained  some  slight  recognition,  was  not  on  the 
whole  a  literary  success.  He  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  he  could  not  rival  Walter  Scott  and  Cooper ;  that 
what  imagination  he  possessed  was  the  imagination  of 
the  historian  who  reproduces,  rather  than  that  of  the 
romancer  who  both  reproduces  and  creates  ;  and  he 
was  confirmed  in  this  impression  by  the  success  of  an 
article  on  Peter  the  Great  which  appeared  in  the 
"  North  American  Review  "  for  October,  1 845.  Dr. 
Holmes  lingers  lovingly  over  this  paper,  indicating,  as 
it  does,  some  of  the  talent  for  the  picturesque  of  the 
historian  who  was  yet  to  be.  Had  it  been  published 
in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  it  would  certainly  have 
attracted  general  attention  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlan- 
tic ;  but  the  "  North  American  "  at  that  time  was  so 


166  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

feebly  supported  financially  that  some  of  us  who  wrote 
for  it  at  a  dollar  a  page  were  wont  to  call  it  the  Mount 
Auburn  of  literature,  affording  a  most  beautiful  mau- 
soleum wherein  an  article  could  be  buried.  Motley's 
historical  sketch  of  Peter  the  Great,  though  all  alive 
in  itself,  could  not  escape  being  decently  wrapped  in 
the  cerements  of  that  eminently  well-printed,  that 
eminently  good,  that  eminently  respectable,  and  that 
eminently  uncirculated  quarterly.  Those  who  have 
caught  the  tone  of  Motley's  style  in  his  histories  must 
be  constantly  reminded  of  it  in  re-reading  this  article 
in  the  "North  American."  Charles  the  Twelfth  of 
Sweden  is  characterized  as  the  "  crowned  gladiator." 
"  I  know,"  said  Peter,  "  the  Swedes  will  have  the  ad- 
vantage of  us  for  a  considerable  time,  but  they  will 
teach  us  at  length  to  beat  them  ; "  and  afterward 
comes  that  fine  touch,  in  reference  to  Peter's  appren- 
ticeship in  the  jlrt  of  ship-building,  of  the  "  colossal 
puerility  of  the  Russian  marine."  Again,  Peter,  the 
undisputed  proprietor  of  a  quarter  of  the  globe,  is 
represented  as  opening  his  eyes  to  the  responsiljilities 
of  his  position,  and  as  having  "  voluntarily  descended 
from  his  throne  for  the  noble  purpose  of  qualifying 
himself  to  reascend  it."  But  perhaps  the  most  strik- 
ing characteristic  of  Motley's  insidiously  insulting  and 
cavalier  way  of  disregarding  the  dignity  of  history, 
when  dignity  stands  in  the  way  of  reality  and  fact,  is 
to  be  found  in  this  sentence  :  ^  The  Normans  had,  to 
be  sure,  in  the  eleventh  century,  taken  possession  of 
the  Russian  government  with  the  same  gentleman-like 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  167 

effrontery  with  which,  at  about  the  same  time,  they 
had  seated  themselves  upon  every  throne  in  Europe." 
That  phrase,  "  gentleman-like  effrontery,"  never  re- 
appears in  Motley's  histories ;  but  the  wit  of  the 
statement  is  peculiar  to  the  wit  of  Motley  throughout 
the  nine  octavos  in  which  he  appears  as  the  champion 
of  liberty  against  oppression.  His  keen  scorn  is  even 
more  deadly  than  his  impassioned  invectives,  when- 
ever he  has  a  tyrant  or  bigot  to  demolish.  He  makes 
him  detestable  —  that  is  easy  ;  but  ho  also  makes  him 
ridiculous,  and  that  can  only  be  done  by  such  unex- 
pected strokes  of  wit  as  that  we  have  quoted.  The 
emperors,  kings,  archdukes,  dukes,  counts,  and  other 
select  specimens  of  human  kind  who  appear  in  Mot- 
ley's pages  are  engaged  in  a  war  with  the  people. 
They  are  gentlemen  ;  those  they  oppress  are  merely 
producers  of  wealth,  on  whom  gentlemen,  however, 
must  depend  for  subsistence  ;  but  all  the  rights  of  the 
plebeians,  whether  in  the  property  created  by  their 
labor  or  in  tlie  thoughts  created  by  their  minds,  must 
be  discarded  as  of  no  account  when  noble  or  pope 
decides  with  "  gentleman-like  effrontery "  that  they 
have  neither  the  right  to  profit  by  their  own  industry 
nor  to  think  by  the  exercise  of  their  own  brains. 
Motley  was  struck  by  the  folly  as  well  as  the  guilt  of 
these  pretenders  to  make  merchandise  of  men.  He 
was  convinced  that  what  is  called  the  people  of  any 
age  outvalued  all  its  rulers.  By  patient  study  of  his- 
tory he  was  inspired  with  an  ambition  to  vindicate 
the  popular  view  of  human  rights  and  duties  against 


168  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

the  autocratic,  the  monarchical,  the  aristocratic  view. 
Individually,  he  was  the  most  fastidious  of  human 
beings.  He  had  a  genuine  horror  of  vulgarity  in  all 
its  forms.  He  came,  however,  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  so-called  "  vulgar  "  constituted  the  most  important 
portion  of  the  human  race ;  and  casting  aside  all  tlie 
prejudices  of  education,  of  caste,  taste,  and  all  the 
conventional  sentiments  current  in  the  circles  in 
which  he  moved,  he  ached  to  become  the  historian  of 
human  liberty  in  some  era  where  aristocracy  and 
democracy  were  most  violently  opposed,  and  where 
the  event  of  the  struggle  was  of  world-wide  impor- 
tance. He  fixed  on  the  revolt  of  the  Netherlands 
against  the  tyranny  of  Philip  the  Second  of  Spain  as 
his  subject,  and  to  this  contest  he  devoted  his  mature 
intellectual  life. 

He  felt  convinced  that  modern  civilization,  as  we 
know  it,  depended  on  the  success  of  those  Dutch 
burghers,  traders,  sailors,  and  fishermen  in  their  war 
against  the  impudent  attempt  of  Spain  to  dominate 
Europe ;  and  with  a  "  gentleman-like  effrontery "  of 
the  true,  intrepid  kind,  he  entered  upon  a  crusade 
against  the  conventional  gentlemen  whom  he  con- 
sidered to  be  the  enemies  of  the  human  race.  What 
he  scorned  in  that  "  refined  "  society  in  which  he 
moved  was  its  tendency  to  become  fossilized  in  certain 
notions  of  gentility,  and  its  incapacity  to  appreciate 
those  great  movements  of  the  human  heart  and  mind 
which  prove  that  humanity  is  alive,  and  which  it 
is  the  pleasure,  the  business,  and  the  glory  of  the 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  169 

historian  to  investigate.  One  of  his  acquaintances 
was  a  curious  specimen  of  a  class  of  men  who  have  no 
consciousness  of  this  incessant  movement.  He  really 
thought  that  the  course  of  affairs  since  the  deluge  had 
come  to  a  "  finality "  in  the  best  society  of  Boston. 
There  it  not  only  should  stop,  but  had  stopped.  On 
once  being  asked  what  he  thought  of  the  new  temper- 
ance reform,  he  sublimely  replied  :  "  As  to  what  the 
lower-class,  moral  people  think  of  the  subject  I  know 
nothing ;  but  among  the  gentlemen  of  my  acquaint- 
ance there  is  but  one  opinion,  and  that  opinion  is 
decidedly  unfavorable."  Motley  despised  all  forms 
and  shades  of  this  social  conceit,  and  the  more  of  it 
which  was  thrust  upon  his  attention,  the  more  fiercely 
democratic  he  became  in  sentiment  and  belief.  He 
was  a  gentleman  to  the  innermost  core  of  his  being,  — 
a  gentleman  by  nature,  by  culture,  by  refinement  of 
thought,  by  refinement  of  sensibility,  by  instinctive 
repugnance  to  bad  manners  and  coarse-grained  men ; 
but  to  him  the  worst  possible  vulgarity  was  the  vul- 
garity of  the  conventionally  polite,  who  think  they 
are  gentlemen  because  they  despise  nine-tenths  or 
ninety-nine  hundredths  of  the  human  race  on  the 
ground  that  they  do  not  belong  to  their  peculiar  social 
class.  Motley  sometimes  raged  against  this  vulgarity, 
sometimes  laughed  at  it ;  but  whether  he  inveighed  or 
satirized,  he  ever  considered  a  man  who  held  such  ig- 
noble sentiments  as  no  gentleman.  Indeed,  it  is  one 
of  the  great  offices  of  history  to  teach  "  the  curled 
darlings  "  of  the  state  how  small  and  inconsiderable 


170  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

they  are  as  they  appear  in  the  grand  drama  of  a 
nation's  life. 

As  early  as  1846  Motley's  attention  was  strongly 
drawn  to  the  subject  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  and  he 
began  collecting  materials  for  a  history  of  it.  The 
more  he  investigated,  the  more  he  became  convinced 
of  the  interest,  the  importance,  the  grandeur  of  the 
theme.  He  saw  before  him  a  comparatively  unoccu- 
pied ground  of  modern  history,  which  had  never  been 
treated  with  that  exhaustive  research  into  original 
materials  by  which  each  of  the  great  contemporary 
historians  of  our  time  had  won  his  fame  in  the  special 
subject  he  had  treated.  He  devoured  everything  that 
was  in  print  relating  to  the  history  of  the  Netherlands, 
but  he  knew  that  no  historical  reputation  could  be 
reached  by  compilation,  though  the  compiler  should 
be  as  great  a  master  of  fluent  narrative  as  Irving  or 
Prescott,  or  as  fertile  in  novel  ideas  as  Guizot  or 
Grote.  He  felt  that  he  must  be  a  discoverer  as  well 
as  a  narrator  and  thinker,  an  antiquary  as  well  as  an 
artist.  Filled  with  his  subject,  his  soul  glowed  at  the 
thought  of  making  an  important  addition  to  history, 
and  he  braced  up  his  will  to  undertake  the  lowest 
offices  of  that  obscure  drudgery  which  had  ended  in 
making  Thierry  a  blind  paralytic,  with  no  organ  alive 
in  him  but  his  brain,  and  which  had  tested  the  enthu- 
siasm and  fortitude  of  every  modern  historian  worthy 
of  the  name.  There  was  no  question  as  to  the  fact 
that  the  bright,  jovial,  quick-witted  Motley,  whose 
conversation  was  the  charm  of  every  select  dinner 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  171 

party,  and  whose  last  epigram  was  the  talk  of  the 
town,^  had  deliberately  made  up  his  mind  to  be  as  in- 
defatigable in  industry  as  he  was  acknowledged  to  be 
keen  in  wit  and  swift  in  intelligence.  He  had  a  defi- 
nite plan,  to  which  he  proposed  to  dedicate  his  life. 
What  could  arrest  him  in  carrying  it  out  ?  What 
could  prevent  him  from  realizing  the  proud  anticipa- 
tions conveyed  in  the  lines  of  his  friend  ?  — 

"  Let  us  hear  the  proud  story  that  time  has  bequeathed 
From  lips  that  are  warm  with  the  freedom  they  breathed  ; 
Let  him  summon  its  tyrants  and  tell  us  their  doom, 
Though  he  sweep  the  black  past  like  Van  Tromp  with 
his  broom ! " 

Now  the  lives  of  literary  and  scientific  men  are  some- 
times but  too  full  of  the  rivalries  engendered  by  vanity, 
and  by  contests  for  precedence  in  discovery.  The 
most  humorous  exemplification  of  these  infirmities  of 
noble  minds  is  found  in  the  case  of  the  Philadelphia 
scientist  who  had  the  misfortune  to  discover  a  new 
species  of  rat.  On  that  Rat  he  based  his  claim  to  sci- 
entific renown.  Anybody  who  doubted  his  claim  of 
squatter  sovereignty  or  right  of  eminent  domain  over 
that  Rat  was  his  personal  enemy.  Meanwhile  his 
brother  scientists,  emulous  of  his  reputation  as  a  dis- 
coverer, began  to  question  his  right  to  claim  that  Rat 
as  exclusively  his  own.  From  obscure  doubts  as  to 
his  priority  in  observation  they  proceeded  by  degrees 
to  question  whether  the  Rat  was  really  a  new  species. 

1  For  instance,  here  is  one  specimen  :  *'  Give  me,"  he  said,  "  the 
luxuries  of  life,  and  I  will  do  without  the  necessities." 


172  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

They  then  asserted  that  whether  it  was  new  or  not, 
no  less  than  five  scientists  of  equal  eminence  had  an- 
ticipated him  in  its  discovery.  Each  of  these  five,  of 
course,  set  up  his  separate  howl  that  the  Rat  was  ex- 
clusively his.  The  original  discoverer  went  about 
everywhere  shrieking  that  a  combination  of  scientific 
liars  and  blackguards  had  combined  to  rob  him  of  the 
glory  of  his  Rat.  The  first  effect  was  to  split  the 
"  Wistar  parties  "  into  vehement  and  virulent  factions. 
Thence  the  contagion  spread  into  the  fashionable  cir- 
cles of  Philadelphia,  and  young  maidens  even  signal- 
ized their  first  appearance  in  society  by  chattering 
with  beautiful  volubility  on  the  superior  claims  of  this 
or  that  dear  love  of  a  savant  to  put  this  Rat  into  the 
possessive  case.  Suddenly  the  Rat  —  who  appears,  to 
do  him  justice,  to  have  been  what  Mr.  Artemus  Ward 
would  have  styled  "  an  amoosin'  little  cuss  "  —  disap- 
peared. Then  society  was  shaken  to  its  foundations. 
"  You  have  stolen  my  Rat ! "  was  shouted  from  six 
persons  at  once,  —  the  first  discoverer  being  of  course 
the  strongest  in  respect  to  sharpness  and  pertinacity 
of  screech  and  scream.  The  contest  only  ended  by 
the  placing  of  the  whole  six  in  a  hospital  of  incurables, 
where,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  the  escaped  Rat  demurely 
surveyed  them  all  from  his  philosophic  hole,  wonder- 
ing, perhaps,  in  that  rat's  head  of  his,  whether  his 
race  was  likely  to  increase  in  intelligence  by  that 
course  of  evolution  through  which  rat  brains  in  the 
distant  future  were  to  become  similar  to  the  brains 
deposited  in  the  heads  he  now  gazed  upon  from  his 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  173 

snug  loop-hole  of  retreat.  You  can  almost  hear  him 
squeak  to  Darwin, — 

"  Visions  of  glory,  spare  my  aching  sight ! " 

But  meanwhile  the  sceptre  of  zoological  science  de- 
parted from  Philadelphia  forever,  and  was  usurped  by 
New  York  or  Boston,  whose  naturalists  had  during 
all  this  time  been  tranquilly  engaged  in  making  addi- 
tions to  natural  history,  and  had  never  been  disturbed 
with  this  controversy  as  to  who  first  discovered  that 
worthless  kind  of  Rat.  Their  motto  in  science  then 
was, — 

"  Forget  the  steps  already  trod, 
And  onward  urge  thy  way." 

This  extravaganza  merely  illustrates  the  constant 
danger  to  progress  in  literature  and  science  springing 
from  quarrels  among  their  individual  professors. 
Time  is  lost  in  these  ignoble  brawls.  Boston  itself 
once  came  near  losing  its  position  as  a  scientific  cen- 
tre owing  to  the  infuriated  controversy  among  scien- 
tific men  as  to  the  first  discoverer  of  the  properties  of 
sulphuric  ether.  There  was  the  thing  itself,  mitigat- 
ing or  annihilating  pain ;  but  the  pain  it  at  first  cre- 
ated among  the  various  claimants  and  their  friends 
was  perhaps  greater  than  the  pain  it  destroyed  among 
the  patients  to  whom  it  was  early  applied.  Not  only 
were  the  various  claimants  ruined,  but  it  was  to  be 
feared  that  scientific  discovery  in  Boston  would  come 
to  an  end.  This  catastrophe  was  averted  by  a  pun. 
A  benevolent  gentleman  announced  his  intention  of 


174  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

erecting  a  monument  in  the  Public  Garden  in  honor 
of  the  beneficent  discovery ;  and  a  wit  suggested,  in 
one  of  the  Boston  newspapers,  that  all  the  claimants 
should  be  represented  on  the  sides  of  the  monument, 
while  over  them  all,  in  letters  of  gold,  should  be  writ- 
ten the  word  "Either."  From  that  moment  the 
Boston  scientists  composed  their  animosities,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  their  true  work  of  advancing  science,  with- 
out regard  as  to  who  was  first  or  second  in  inventing 
or  applying  an  idea. 

All  this  may  seem  to  be  digression,  but  it  really  is 
not  so.  Had  "William  H.  Prescott  been  possessed  by 
the  spirit  which  animated  the  Philadelphia  professor 
who  gloried  in  his  Rat,  the  nine  octavos  of  Motley 
would  never  have  been  w^ritten,  and  the  cause  of  his- 
tory would  have  suffered  an  immense  loss.  After 
Motley  had  thoroughly  matured  the  plan  of  his  work, 
he  learned,  to  his  surprise,  that  Prescott  had  made 
large  preparations  for  writing  the  "  History  of  Philip 
the  Second  of  Spain,"  though  his  "History  of  the 
Conquest  of  Peru"  had  not  yet  been  published. 
Prescott  was  then  the  most  popular  of  American  his- 
torians ;  Motley  was  known  only  as  the  author  of  two 
unsuccessful  novels,  and  of  some  articles  in  a  review : 
and  with  a  pang  which  only  noble  spirits  can  feel 
when  they  give  up  a  cherished  design  which  has  en- 
twined itself  with  their  moral  and  intellectual  life,  he 
prepared  to  abandon  the  great  object  of  his  ambition. 
"  I  had  not,"  he  said,  "  first  made  up  my  mind  to 
write  a  history,  and  then  cast  about  to  take  up  a 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  175 

subject.  My  subject  had  taken  me  up,  drawn  me  on, 
and  al)Sorbcd  me  into  itself.  It  was  necessary  for  me, 
it  seemed,  to  write  the  book  I  had  been  thinking  much 
of,  even  if  it  were  destined  to  fall  dead  frpm  the  press, 
and  I  had  no  inclination  or  interest  to  write  any  other." 
At  last  he  called  upon  Prescott,  unfolded  to  him  his 
plan,  indicated  the  points  where  the  historian  of  "  The 
Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic  "  would  cross  the  path  of 
the  historian  of  "  Philip  the  Second,"  and  frankly  ex- 
pressed his  willingness  to  abandon  his  project  rather 
than  interfere  with  Prescott's  intended  work.  Those 
who  knew  and  remember  Prescott  may  well  conceive 
how  that  serene  and  beautiful  intelligence,  incapable 
of  envy,  and  delighting  in  recognizing  merit  even 
though  it  should  eclipse  his  own,  received  such  a 
proposition.  He  first,  with  great  good  sense,  assured 
Motley  that  the  two  books  could  not  injure  each  other, 
as  the  same  topics  gained  increased  interest  as  viewed 
by  two  different  minds.  Then  he  warmly  encouraged 
him  to  carry  out  his  undertaking,  and  placed  at  his 
disposal  all  the  books  in  his  own  library  bearing  upon 
it.  He  gave  him  to  understand  that  history  would  be 
enriched  by  his  labors ;  and  that  any  additions  to  his- 
torical knowledge  he  might  make  would  be  welcomed 
most  cordially  by  his  brother  historians.  "  Had  the 
result  of  that  interview,"  said  Motley,  "  been  different, 
—  had  he  distinctly  stated,  or  even  vaguely  hinted, 
that  it  would  be  as  well  if  I  should  select  some  other 
topic,  or  had  he  sprinkled  me  with  the  cold  water 
of  conventional  and  common-place  encouragement,  I 


176  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

should  have  gone  from  him  with  a  chill  upon  my 
mind,  and  no  doubt  have  laid  down  the  pen  at  once ; 
for,  as  I  have  already  said,  it  was  not  that  I  cared 
about  writing  a  history,  but  that  I  felt  an  inevitable 
impulse  to  write  one  particular  history."  And  as  the 
top  and  crown  of  literary  magnanimity  it  must  be 
recorded  that  Prescott's  first  two  volumes  of  the 
"  History  of  Philip  the  Second "  were  published  in 
1855,  while  Motley's  history  of  "The  Rise  of  the 
Dutch  Republic"  did  not  appear  until  1856.  But 
Prescott,  in  his  preface  to  the  work  he  was  never  to 
complete,  calls  attention  to  the  forth-coming  work  of 
Motley  with  generous  praise,  declaring  that  the  revolt 
of  the  Netherlands  was  only  an  episode  of  his  history, 
and  asking  the  reader's  attention  to  the  more  minute 
account  of  his  brother  historian,  not  a  page  of  whose 
work  had  yet  seen  the  light,  but  which  he  thus  her- 
alded with  all  the  impressiveness  that  attached  to  his 
own  honored  name.  Most  intelligent  readers  in  Europe 
and  the  United  States  were  eager  to  receive  the  vol- 
umes of  Prescott ;  very  few  indeed  were  the  readers 
who  expected  anything  from  the  pen  of  Motley.  It 
seems  to  me,  therefore,  that  there  is  something  inex- 
pressibly beautiful  in  this  cordial  testimony  to  Motley's 
possible  merits  by  a  man  who  was  in  the  full  assur- 
ance of  acknowledged  celebrity,  and  who  thus  nobly 
anticipated  the  fame  of  one  who  was  engaged,  like 
himself,  in  the  hard  task  of  lifting  the  veil  which 
shrouds  the  historic  past.  Among  authors  it  would 
be  difficult  to  name  one  who  was  more  pure  from  all 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  177 

the  besetting  sins  of  men  of  letters  than  William  H. 
Prescott.  Eulogy  which  might  be  considered  as  offen- 
sive when  addressed  to  the  living  may  safely  be  ven- 
tured in  noting  the  rare  virtues  of  the  dead.  At  the 
time  he  was  cheering  Motley  on  to  historical  labors 
which  in  some  respects  traversed  his  own,  he  had  a 
profound  sense,  derived  from  reading  passages  in 
"  Merry  Mount,"  that  he  was  encouraging  a  formid- 
able competitor,  who  might  displace  him  from  the 
position  he  then  occupied  as  the  most  prominent  and 
popular  of  American  historians.  I  have  a  great  re- 
spect for  Prescott's  histories,  but  Prescott's  literary 
character  outvalues  a  hundredfold  all  his  literary  tri- 
umphs. There  was  no  possibility  that  such  an  exqui- 
sitely amiable  heart  and  intelligence  should  be  ever 
vexed  by  any  controversy  as  to  whether  he  or  Motley 
had  discovered  an  historic  "  Rat."  Motley  so  deeply 
felt  the  stainless  purity  of  Prescott's  character  and 
intellect  that  he  could  never  speak  of  his  disinterest- 
edness without  deep  emotion. 

The  more  Motley  reflected  on  the  portion  of  his 
work  already  written,  the  more  he  was  convinced  that 
he  could  not  hope  to  complete  it  satisfactorily  on  this 
side  of  the  water.  In  1851  he  accordingly  took  his 
family  to  Europe,  and  lived  for  five  years  the  life  of  a 
recluse,  prowling  among  the  state  archives  at  Berlin, 
Dresden,  the  Hague,  and  Brussels,  and  finding  every 
year  reasons  for  modifying  the  most  confident  opin- 
ions he  had  formed  the  year  before.  The  history  of 
"The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic  "  was  thus  the  result 

12 


178  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

of  ten  years'  labor,  continually  changing  its  form  as 
new  materials  were  placed  within  the  author's  reach, 
and  ending  at  last  in  the  great  historical  epic,  with 
the  first  William  of  Orange  for  its  hero,  which  we  now 
read  with  so  much  instruction  and  delight.  This  work, 
though  widely  circulated  both  in  Europe  and  America, 
has  probably  never  yet  been  estimated  at  its  full 
worth.  I  have  recently  gone  over  it,  pencil  in  hand, 
noting  its  singular  felicities  in  respect  to  style,  to 
thought,  to  picturesque  description,  to  imaginative  re- 
alization of  persons  and  events,  and  to  positive  discov- 
eries of  new  facts,  and  I  might  fill  a  whole  number  of 
the  Magazine  by  merely  pointing  out  these  excellences 
in  detail.  Dr.  Holmes  has  printed  one  letter  (Novem- 
ber, 185S)  addressed  to  him  while  Motley  was  in  Brus- 
sels, showing  how  completely  the  latter  was  living, 
mentally  and  morally,  day  after  day,  in  the  sixteenth 
rather  than  in  the  nineteenth  century.  "  I  am,"  says 
Motley,  "  in  a  town  which,  for  aught  I  know,  may  be 
very  gay.  I  don't  know  a  living  soul  in  it.  We  have 
not  a  single  acquaintance  in  the  place,  and  we  glory 
in  the  fact.  .  .  .  En  revanche^  the  dead  men  of  the 
place  are  my  intimate  friends.  I  am  at  home  in  any 
cemetery.  With  the  fellows  of  the  sixteenth  century 
I  am  on  the  most  familiar  terms.  Any  ghost  that 
ever  flits  by  night  across  the  moonlight  square  is  at 
once  hailed  by  me  as  a  man  and  a  brother.  'I  call 
him  by  his  Christian  name  at  once.  .  .  .  Whatever 
may  be  the  result  of  my  labor,  nobody  can  say  that 
I  have  not  worked  like  a  brute  beast.     But  I  don't 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  179 

care  for  the  result ;  the  labor  is  in  itself  its  own  re- 
ward, and  all  I  want.  I  go  day  after  day  to  the  archives 
here  (as  I  went  all  sunnncr  at  the  Hague),  studying 
the  old  letters  and  documents  of  the  fifteenth  [six- 
teenth] century.  Here  I  remain  among  my  fellow- 
worms,  feeding  on  these  niusly  mulberry-leaves,  out 
of  which  we  are  hereafter  to  spin  our  silk.  How  can 
you  expect  anything  interesting  from  such  a  liuman 
cocoon?" 

In  1856  he  went  to  London  in  search  of  a  publisher. 
Murray  declined  the  huge  manuscript,  and  it  was  pub- 
lished at  the  author's  expense  by  John  Chapman.  Its 
success  was  brilliant  and  immediate.  Fifteen  thou- 
sand copies  w^ere  sold  in  England  in  1857.  Guizot 
superintended  a  French  translation  of  it.  It  was  also 
translated  into  Dutch,  German,  and  Russian.  The 
pirated  editions  in  English  were  Numerous.  The 
American  edition  was  published  by  the  Harpers,  and 
it  is  needless  to  say  that  it  found  hosts  of  readers 
here.  Among  others,  so  eminent  a  scholar  as  Dr.  Lie- 
ber  was  in  a  rapture  of  enthusiasm  about  the  book. 
"  Congress  and  Parliament,"  he  wrote,  "  decree  thanks 
for  military  exploits;  rarely  for  diplomatic  achieve- 
ments. If  they  ever  voted  their  thanks  for  books  — 
and  what  deeds  have  influenced  the  course  of  human 
events  more  than  some  books? — Motley  ought  to 
have  the  thanks  of  our  Congress ;  but  I  doubt  not  he 
has  already  the  thanks  of  every  American  who  has 
read  the  work.  It  will  leave  its  distinct  mark  upon 
the  American  mind." 


180  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

Hardly  pausing  in  his  historical  labors  for  rest  or 
recreation,  he  proceeded  at  once  to  gather  materials 
for  the  continuation  of  his  work.  The  first  two  vol- 
umes of  the  "  History  of  the  United  Netherlands,"  the 
fruit  of  enormous  original  research,  were  published  in 
1860.  On  the  breaking  out  of  our  civil  war  his  patri- 
otism was  roused  to  the  highest  pitch,  and  for  a  period 
he  forgot  the  history  of  every  country  but  his  own. 

He  was  extremely  popular  as  a  man  in  the  most 
influential  circles  of  London  society,  and  he  used  his 
popularity  to  make  his  patriotism  efficient.  You  could 
not  get  him  to  converse  on  any  other  topic  than  the 
wrong  of  the  rebellion.  He  fought  our  battles  in 
every  drawing-room  he  entered,  encountering  prejudice 
with  resolution,  and  shaming  ignorance  by  the  torrent 
of  facts  and  arguments  with  which  he  overwhelmed  it. 
His  two  long  letters  in  the  "  London  Times"  going  over 
the  whole  grounds  of  the  controversy  produced  a 
marked  effect  on  the  public  opinion  of  England.  He 
was  like  a  man  possessed,  —  a  fervid  missionary  of  a 
political  creed  on  which,  as  he  thought,  the  salvation 
of  a  nation  depended.  When  he  returned  to  the 
United  States  in  1861,  his  old  American  companions, 
sufficiently  excited  themselves,  were  astonished  at  the 
superior  zeal  and  vehemence  of  his  patriotism.  Mr. 
Lincoln  appointed  him  minister  to  Austria,  and  on  his 
way  to  his  post  he  stopped  a  sliort  time  in  England 
to  have  another  tussle  with  his  English  opponents. 
When  he  arrived  at  Vienna  he  wrote,  under  date  of 
November  16, 1861,  to  Holmes :  "  I  do  what  good  I 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  181 

can.  I  think  I  made  some  impression  on  Lord  John 
Russell,  with  whom  I  spent  two  days  after  my  arrival 
in  England,  and  I  talked  very  frankly  and  as  strongly 
as  I  could  to  Palmerston,  and  I  have  had  long  conver- 
sations and  correspondences  with  other  leading  men  in 
England.  I  have  also  had  an  hour's  conversation 
with  Thouvenal  in  Paris.  I  hammered  the  Northern 
view  into  him  as  soundly  as  I  could.  .  .  .  Our  fate  is 
in  our  own  hands,  and  Europe  is  looking  on  to  see 
which  side  is  strongest.  When  it  has  made  the  dis- 
covery, it  will  back  it  as  also  the  best  and  most  moral. 
.  .  .  Yesterday  I  had  my  audience  with  the  Emperor. 
He  received  me  with  much  cordiality,  and  seemed  in- 
terested in  the  long  account  which  I  gave  him  of  our 
affairs.  You  may  suppose  I  inculcated  the  Northern 
views.  We  spoke  in  his  vernacular,  and  he  asked  me 
afterward  if  I  was  a  German.  I  mention  this  not 
from  vanity,  but  because  he  asked  it  with  earnestness, 
as  if  it  had  a  political  significance."  This  must  have 
been  the  first  time  that  an  American  ambassador  at  the 
Austrian  court  was  suspected  of  being  a  German, 
owing  to  the  ease  and  rapidity  with  which  he  conversed 
in  the  language,  and  the  absolute  purity  of  his  pro- 
nunciation. 

His  mind  and  feelings  were  so  wrought  up  by  the 
calamities  of  his  country  that  in  the  early  years  of  the 
war  he  almost  abandoned  literary  work  altogether, 
and  it  was  only  when  the  side  he  so  passionately  es- 
poused was  plainly  nearing  success  that  he  resumed 
it.     "  I  wish,"  he  wrote  to  Holmes,  in  1862,  "  I  could 


182  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

bore  you  about  something  else  but  American  politics. 
But  there  is  nothing  else  worth  thinking  of  in  the 
world.  All  else  is  leather  and  prunella.  We  are 
living  over  again  the  days  of  the  Dutchmen,  or  the 
seventeenth-century  Englishmen."  He  early  took 
strong  ground  for  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves. 
When  he  heard  of  the  news  of  the  battle  of  Gettysburg 
and  the  surrender  of  Vicksburg,  his  family,  with  the 
exception  of  his  youngest  child,  were  absent  frcm  the 
house.  How  to  express  his  joy  he  knew  not,  but  ex- 
press it  he  must.  So  he  rushed  up  stairs  to  the  room 
where  the  infant  was  sleeping,  and  screeched  through 
the  key-hole  of  the  door,  "  Yicksburg  is  ours  ! " 

There  are  characteristic  touches  in  these  letters  from 
Vienna  which  are  exquisite  in  the  humor  with  which 
he  flouts  all  despotic  theories.  Thus  he  speaks  of  the 
Archduke  Maximilian  :  "  He  adores  bull-fights,  and 
rather  regrets  the  Inquisition,  and  considers  the  Duke 
of  Alva  everything  noble  and  chivalrous,  and  the 
most  abused  of  men.  It  would  do  your  heart  good  to 
hear  his  invocations  to  that  deeply  injured  shade, 
and  his  denunciations  of  the  ignorant  and  vulgar  Pro- 
testants who  have  defamed  him."  And  again  :  "  We 
have  nothing  green  here  but  the  Archduke  Max,  who 
firmly  lielieves  that  he  is  going  forth  to  Melico  to  es- 
tablish an  American  empire,  and  that  it  is  his  divine 
mission  to  destroy  the  dragon  of  democracy,  and 
establish  the  true  Church,  the  Right  Divine,  and  all 
sorts  of  games.     Poor  young  man ! " 

Mr.  Sumner  was  in  the  habit  of  telling,  with  much 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  183 

humor,  one  amusing  incident  in  Motley's  diplomatic 
career  in  Vienna.  After  the  close  of  the  joint  war  of 
Prussia  and  Austria  against  Denmark  on  the  question 
of  the  duchies,  Bismarck  came  to  Vienna  to  settle  the 
terms  of  peace  with  the  Emperor.  He  arrived  too  late 
to  go  to  the  office  of  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs, 
and  remembering  that  his  old  university  chum,  Motley, 
was  the  American  minister,  he  drove  directly  to  his 
house  and  found  Motley  just  retiring  from  a  modest 
family  dinner,  with  nothing  but  the  remains  of  the  des- 
sert on  the  table.  The  old  friends  cordially  joined  hands 
and  hearts;  fresh  viands  were  furnished  from  Motley's 
kitchen,  and  fresh  Burgundy  from  his  cellar,  and  for 
hour  after  hour  the  old  collegians  went  over  their  stu- 
dent experiences  and  frolics  at  the  University  of  Ber- 
lin, without  speaking  a  word  about  politics.  After 
cracking  his  last  walnut  and  swallowing  his  last  glass 
of  wine,  Bismarck,  long  after  midnight,  left  Motley's 
house,  and  sauntered  away  whistling  to  his  hotel,  with 
an  immense  internal  satisfaction  at  the  entertainment 
he  had  derived  from  his  first  night's  experience  at 
Vienna.  But  the  eyes  of  Europe  were  all  this  time 
on  the  terrible  man  of  "  blood  and  iron."  The  foreign 
embassies  were  in  an  uproar.  Was  it  possible  that 
there  was  to  be  an  alliance  between  Prussia  and  the 
United  States  ?  It  was  known  that  New  York  was, 
in  respect  to  its  German  population,  the  third  or 
fourth  German  city  in  the  world.  What  naeant  this 
mysterious  visit  to  the  American  minister,  —  the  first 
visit   the   dreaded  Prussian  statesman  had  made  on 


184  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

entering  Vienna?  Telegrams  flew  to  London,  Paris, 
Turin,  and  St.  Petersburg.  The  ingenuity  of  diplo- 
matists was  taxed  to  account  for  what  was  unaccount- 
able. Sumner  himself,  as  chairman  of  the  Senate 
Committee  of  Foreign  Affairs,  received  private  letters 
from  eminent  persons  abroad  earnestly  inquiring 
whether  the  United  States  had  resolved  to  depart 
from  non-interference  with  the  affairs  of  Europe,  as 
recommended  by  the  immortal  Washington,  etc.,  — 
absurd  letters,  at  which  Sumner,  who  knew  Motley's 
early  associations  with  Bismarck,  exhibited  his  teeth 
in  the  most  genial  and  humorous  of  smiles.  He 
laughed  with  Motley  over  the  occurrence  some  years 
afterward,  when  the  affair  was  explained  to  him  just 
as  he  had  divined  it.  It  is  a  pity  that  this  one  hu- 
morous incident  in  the  whole  dreary  correspondence 
of  the  American  Department  of  State  with  its  minis- 
ters abroad  is  not  recorded  in  any  state  paper.  But 
it  is  certain  that  for  a  day  or  two  it  seriously  disturbed 
the  consultations  of  every  cabinet  in  Europe. 

Motley  was  six  years  in  Vienna,  and  then  resigned, 
in  a  fit  of  indignation  growing  out  of  the  miserable 
M'Cracken  affair.  Mr.  John  Bigelow  has  lately  pub- 
lished a  defence  of  Mr.  Seward's  conduct  in  this  busi- 
ness, the  amount  of  which  is  that  Mr.  Seward  could 
not  have  shielded  Motley  from  President  Johnson's 
jealous,  irrational  anger  without  running  the  risk  of 
being  himself  dismissed  from  the  State  Department, 
—  a  catastrophe  which  he  contemplated  with  horror, 
as  it  might,  in  the  President's  then  irritable  and  sus- 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  185 

picious  state  of  mind,  lead  to  some  new  appointment 
disastrous  to  the  country.  Dr.  Holmes  considers  the 
defence  as  little  better  than  an  impeachment,  and 
Mr.  Bigclow  liimself  does  not  make  the  most  of  his 
case. 

The  historian,  after  his  resignation,  returned  with 
new  zeal  to  his  historical  labors,  and  in  1868  pub- 
lished the  last  two  volumes  of  his  "  History  of  the 
United  Netherlands."  Their  reception  showed  how 
different  was  the  estimate  formed  of  Motley's  mind 
and  character,  by  the  great  public  of  Europe  and  the 
United  States,  from  the  estimate  of  him  formed  by 
Mr.  Andrew  Johnson  and  Mr.  Andrew  Johnson's 
special  ambassador  (truly)  extraordinary  abroad,  Mr. 
George  W.  M'Cracken.  In  the  summer  of  1868  he 
returned  with  his  family  to  Boston,  and  was  warmly 
greeted  by  all  his  old  friends.  He  appeared  to  be  in 
the  full  vigor  of  bodily  and  mental  health,  and  his 
powers  of  conversation  were  such  as  surprised  the 
most  redoubtable  talkers  of  that  city.  Dr.  Holmes 
mentions  his  connection  with  the  Saturday  Club  of 
Boston,  —  an  association  composed  of  some  fifteen  or 
twenty  persons,  who  were  elected  to  membership  on 
the  ground  that  they  were  generally  opposed  to  each 
other  in  mind,  character,  and  pursuits,  and  that  there- 
fore conversation  at  the  monthly  dinner  of  the  club 
would  naturally  assume  quite  an  animated  if  not 
controversial  tone.  Motley  delighted  in  this  associa- 
tion, as  it  gave  full  play  for  the  friendly  collision  of 
his  own  intellect  with  the  intellects  of  others,  —  Intel- 


186  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

lects  of  which  some  were  as  keen,  bright,  and  rapid 
as  his  own.  "  Always  remember  me,"  he  wrote  from 
Vienna,  "  to  the  club,  one  and  all.  It  touches  me 
nearly  when  you  assure  me  that  I  am  not  forgotten 
by  them.  To-morrow  is  Saturday,  the  last  of  the 
month  [the  time  of  the  meeting  of  the  club].  We 
are  going  to  dine  with  our  Spanish  colleague.  But 
the  first  bumper  of  the  Don's  champagne  I  shall 
drain  to  the  health  of  my  Parker  House  friends." 
On  his  return  to  Boston  in  1868  he  was,  of  course, 
warmly  welcomed  by  the  fraternity,  whose  monthly 
dinners  he  constantly  attended.  Perhaps,  as  Dr. 
Holmes  has  described  the  club  generally  in  a  note  to 
his  biography,  it  may  not  be  an  indecorum  to  lift  the 
veil  from  one  of  its  dinners  in  which  he  bore  a  main 
part  in  the  conversational  achievements.  Motley  laid 
down  some  proposition,  which  Holmes,  of  course, 
instantly  doubted,  and  then  Lowell  plunged  in,  differ- 
ing both  from  Motley  and  Holmes.  A  triangular 
duel  ensued,  with  an  occasional  ringing  sentence 
thrown  in  by  Judge  Hoar  for  the  benevolent  purpose 
of  increasing  a  complication  already  sufficient  to  task 
the  wit  and  resource  of  the  combatants.  In  ordinary 
discussion  one  person  is  allowed  to  talk  at  least  for 
a  half  or  a  quarter  of  a  minute  before  his  brother 
athletes  rush  in  upon  him  with  their  replies ;  but  in 
this  debate  all  three  talked  at  once,  with  a  velocity  of 
tongue  which  fully  matched  their  velocity  of  thought. 
Still,  in  the  incessant  din  of  voices,  every  point  made 
by  one  was  replied  to  by  another   or  ridiculed  by  a 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  187 

third,  and  was  instantly  followed  by  new  statements 
and  counter-statements,  arguments  and  counter-argu- 
ments, hits  and  retorts,  all  germane  to  the  matter, 
and  all  directed  to  a  definite  end.  The  curiosity  of 
the  contest  was  that  neither  of  the  combatants  re- 
peated anything  which  had  been  once  thrown  out  of 
the  controversy  as  irrelevant,  and  that  while  speaking 
all  together  the  course  of  the  discussion  was  as  clear 
to  the  mind  as  though  there  had  been  a  minute's 
pause  between  statement  and  reply.  The  discussion 
was  finished  in  fifteen  minutes ;  if  conducted  under 
the  ordinary  rules  of  conversation,  it  would  have 
lasted  a  couple  of  hours,  without  adding  a  new 
thought,  or  fact,  or  stroke  of  wit  applicable  to  the 
question  in  debate.  The  other  members  of  the  club 
looked  on  in  mute  wonder  while  witnessing  these 
feats  of  intellectual  and  vocal  gymnastics.  If  any 
other  man  than  Judge  Hoar  had  ventured  in,  his 
voice  and  thought  would  both  have  been  half  a  minute 
behind  the  point  which  the  discussion  had  reached, 
and  would  therefore  have  been  of  no  account  in  the 
arguments  which  contributed  to  bring  it  to  a  close. 
On  this  occasion  I  had  no  astronomical  clock  to  con- 
sult ;  but,  judging  by  the  ear,  I  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  in  swiftness  of  utterance  Motley  was  two-six- 
teenths of  a  second  ahead  of  Holmes,  and  nine-six- 
teenths of  a  second  ahead  of  Lowell. 

In  the  autumn  of  1868  Motley  warmly  supported 
Grant  for  the  Presidency.  For  the  victorious  general 
he  had  then   a  genuine   admiration.     Shortly   after 


188  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

Grant  was  sworn  in  he  was  appointed  minister  to 
England,  and  unanimously  confirmed  by  the  Senate. 
He  accepted  the  post  with  some  misgivings ;  but  still, 
when  he  sailed  from  the  country  he  had  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  he  left  a  single  enemy  behind  him. 

The  wretched  story  of  his  recall  is  told  by  Dr. 
Holmes  with  admirable  temper,  but  yet  with  an  inci- 
sive vigor  of  style  and  thought  which  demolishes 
every  pretence  by  which  the  real  reason  for  his  dis- 
missal has  been  attempted  to  be  disguised. 

It  would  be  a  curious  subject  of  inquiry  whether 
or  not  Grant  ever  read  "  The  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Re- 
public." There  are  so  many  points  of  similarity 
between  his  best  and  noblest  qualities  and  those  of 
William  the  Silent  that,  if  he  had  read  the  book, 
one  would  think  that  Motley's  vivid  presentation  of 
the  Dutch  hero  would  have  endeared  the  author  to 
him.  Indeed,  Motley  was  so  confident  of  the  support 
of  Grant  that  when  vague  rumors  of  his  intended 
removal  reached  him  he  spoke  of  them  slightingly. 
"  Of  one  thing  I  am  sure,"  he  said,  "  and  that  is  the 
friendship  of  the  President." 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Motley's  sensitive 
nature  was  stung  to  the  quick  by  the  act  of  his  govern- 
ment. President  Johnson  treated  him  with  sheer 
brutality,  and  though  he  was  justly  irritated,  he  did 
not  feel  himself  dishonored ;  but  what  cut  him  to  the 
heart  in  the  conduct  of  President  Grant  was  the 
attempt  to  show  that  his  dismissal  from  office  was 
due  to  his  disobedience  of  the  instructions   of  his 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  189 

government ;  thus  placing  him,  as  he  supposed,  before 
the  eyes  of  Europe  and  America  as  a  disgraced  minis- 
ter. The  wrong  wrung  his  very  soul,  and  he  could 
never  forgive,  and,  what  was  worse,  he  never  could 
forget  it.  Still,  he  resumed  his  historical  studies, 
and  in  1874  published  "  The  Life  and  Death  of  John 
of  Barneveld,"  a  continuation  of  "  The  History  of  the 
United  Netherlands,"  and  bringing  his  Dutch  annals 
down  to  the  beginning  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 
Valuable  and  interesting  as  the  work  is,  it  may  be 
said  that  if  he  had  shortened  Barneveld's  life  by  a 
half,  he  might  have  lengthened  his  own;  for  the 
materials  were  more  intractable  than  any  he  had 
before  encountered,  —  the  handwriting  especially  of 
the  great  Advocate  of  Holland  being  so  bad  as  almost 
to  be  undecipherable  even  by  the  aid  of  the  micro 
scope. 

On  the  last  day  of  the  year  in  which  this  noble 
work  appeared,  Mrs.  Motley  died.  This  blow,  coming 
as  it  did  in  the  midst  of  bodily  illness  and  mental 
distress,  broke  his  heart.  He  visited  the  United 
States  for  the  last  time  in  the  summer  of  1875  ;  re- 
turned to  England  in  the  autumn;  and  after  strug- 
gling manfully  for  more  than  two  years  with  the 
illness  which  prevented  him  from  engaging  in  any 
strenuous  mental  exertion,  he  died  peacefully  on  the 
29th  of  May,  1877,  the  last  words  on  his  lips  being, 
"  It  has  come !  it  has  come ! "  He  was  buried  by  the 
side  of  his  wife  in  Kensal  Green  Cemetery.  On  his 
gravestone  the  simple  dates  of  his  birth  and  death 


190  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

are  given,  followed  by  a  text  chosen  by  himself :  "  In 
God  is  light,  and  in  Him  is  no  darkness  at  all." 

In  judging  Mr.  Motley  as  an  historian  we  must  first 
refer  to  the  importance  of  the  great  European  epoch 
to  which  his  histories  are  devoted.  He  seized,  with 
the  divining  glance  of  genius,  on  that  exact  point  in 
European  history  where  Man,  if  we  may  so  express 
it,  first  came  into  resolute  hostility  to  Privileged  Men. 
The  reader  who  fails  to  perceive  this  fundamental  fact 
will  follow  the  course  of  his  thoughtful,  picturesque, 
and  glowing  narratives  without  catching  his  main 
purpose.  The  government  of  the  United  States  —  the 
inheritor  of  the  ideas  of  Human  Rights,  the  strug- 
gles of  whose  champions  with  monarchs  and  nobles, 
through  tumults,  battles,  sieges,  proscriptions,  and 
massacres,  he  spent  his  life  in  depicting  —  twice 
appointed  him  to  represent  itself  in  Europe,  and 
twice  subjected  him  to  insults  which  no  honorable 
gentleman  could  bear  without  remonstrance  and 
indignation.  His  enemies  and  defamers  will  gain 
no  additional  reputation  by  having  their  names 
associated  with  his ;  but  the  historian  whom  they 
attempted  to  dishonor  will  be  held  in  grateful  remem- 
brance by  the  American  people,  as  the  man  who  first 
explored  the  obscure  sources  and  vitalized  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  ideas,  the  events,  and  the  martyrdoms 
whose  final  result  was  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence and  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

His  work,  as  he  originally  conceived  it,  was  to  have 
the   general   title  of  "The   Eighty   Years'  "War  for 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  191 

Liberty,"  comprehending  the  three  volumes  of  "  The 
Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic,"  the  four  volumes  of 
"  The  History  of  the  United  Netherlands,"  the  two 
volumes  of  "  The  Life  and  Death  of  John  of  Barne- 
veld,"  and  "  The  History  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War," 
ending  with  "  The  Peace  of  "Westphalia,"  in  1648. 
The  last-mentioned  history,  which  would  have  been 
the  crowning  event  of  his  literary  career,  he  did  not 
live  long  enough  even  to  begin,  though  he  must  have 
accumulated  large  materials  for  it.  The  portions  of 
his  grand  plan  which  he  did  complete  are  among  the 
most  valuable  contributions  to  history  which  the  pres- 
ent century,  singularly  rich  in  historical  literature, 
has  produced ;  for  his  nine  octavos  are  based  on 
sources  of  information  still  remaining  in  manuscript, 
and  which,  in  many  cases,  he  was  the  first  to  dis- 
cover and  investigate.  In  this  task  of  original  re- 
search he  worked,  in  his  own  emphatic  language,  like 
"  a  brute  beast."  The  novelty  and  importance  of 
many  of  the  facts  he  thus  rescued  from  oblivion 
gained  for  him  the  respect  and  esteem  of  every  his- 
torical scholar  in  Europe  ;  for  there  was  hardly  a 
European  nation  on  whose  history  his  researches  did 
not  shed  light.  '•  For  the  history  of  the  United 
Provinces,"  as  he  himself  said,  "  is  not  at  all  a  pro- 
vincial history.  It  is  the  history  of  European  liberty. 
Without  the  struggle  of  Holland  and  England  against 
Spain,  all  Europe  might  have  been  Catholic  and 
Spanish.  It  was  Holland  that  saved  England  in  the 
sixteenth    century,   and,  by   so    doing,   secured    the 


192  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

triumph  of  the  Reformation,  and  placed  the  indepen- 
dence of  the  various  states  of  Europe  upon  a  sure 
foundation."  Indeed,  his  books  illustrate  the  contem- 
porary annals  of  England,  France,  and  Germany 
almost  as  much  as  they  do  those  of  Holland  and 
Belgium.  Especially  is  this  the  case  with  the  Eng- 
land of  Elizabeth  and  the  Great  Britain  of  James  the 
First.  He  delved  in  the  English  State-paper  Office 
and  among  the  MSS.  of  the  British  Museum  until  he 
unearthed  new  facts  which  gave  a  shock  of  pleased 
surprise  to  many  of  the  most  diligent  English  anti- 
quaries and  historical  students.  Speaking  of  the  liber- 
ality of  modern  European  governments  in  opening 
their  archives  to  the  inspection  of  the  historian,  he 
describes  the  advantages  the  latter  now  enjoys  in 
words  which  literally  embody  his  own  experience. 
"  He  leans  over  the  shoulder  of  Philip  the  Second  at 
his  writing-table,  as  the  King  spells  patiently  out, 
with  cipher  key  in  hand,  the  most  concealed  hiero- 
glyphics of  Parma  or  Guise  or  Mendoza.  .  .  .  He  enters 
the  cabinet  of  the  deeply  pondering  Burghley,  and 
takes  from  the  most  private  drawer  the  memoranda 
which  record  that  minister's  unutterable  doubtings ; 
lie  pulls  from  the  dressing-gown  folds  of  the  stealthy, 
soft-gliding  Walsingham  the  last  secret  which  he  has 
picked  from  the  Emperor's  pigeon-holes  or  the  Pope's 
pocket,  and  which  not  Hatton,  nor  Buckhurst,  nor 
Leicester,  nor  the  Lord  Treasurer  is  to  see,  —  nobody 
but  Elizabeth  herself;  he  sits  invisible  at  the  most 
secret  councils  of  the  Nassaus  and   Barnevelds   and 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  193 

Buys,  or  pores  with  Farnesc  over  coming  victories 
and  vast  schemes  of  universal  conquest ;  he  reads  the 
latest  bit  of  scandal,  the  minutest  characteristic  of 
king  or  minister,  chronicled  by  the  gossiping  Venetians 
for  the  edification  of  the  Forty ;  and  after  all  this 
prying  and  eavesdropping,  having  seen  the  cross- 
purposes,  the  bribings,  the  windings  in  the  dark,  he  is 
not  surprised  if  those  who  were  systematically  de- 
ceived did  not  always  arrive  at  correct  conclusions." 
Motley  thus  "  interviews,"  as  it  were,  all  the  sov- 
ereigns, statesmen,  generals,  and  churchmen  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  so  that  through  him  we  know  them 
as  we  know,  or  rather,  perhaps,  as  we  do  not  know, 
the  leading  personages  of  our  own  time. 

After  having  thus  amassed  and  digested  his  mate- 
rials, the  task  of  composition  seems  to  have  been  to 
Motley  a  positive  pleasure.  He  could  write  from  an 
early  hour  in  the  morning  to  late  in  the  afternoon  of 
an  English  day  with  unabated  vigor  and  delight, 
receiving  no  other  inspiration  than  what  he  derived 
from  his  subject-matter.  His  daughter  mentions  that 
for  years  before  his  death  he  did  not  indulge  even  in 
the  student's  luxury  of  smoking.  He  once  laugh- 
ingly said  to  me  that  what  cured  him  of  the  habit 
was  the  circumstance  that  when  he  went  to  Europe 
he  could  get  no  good  cigars.  The  charm  of  his 
narrative  style  comes  from  his  unwithholding  self- 
abandonment  to  the  scenes,  events,  and  persons  that 
filled  his  mind  to  overflowing. 

When  a  New  England  farmer  was  asked  to  buy  a 
13 


194  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

machine  which  hatched  eggs  into  chickens  without 
the  interposition  of  the  hen,  he  naturally  objected 
that  the  thing  could  not  be  done  better  by  the  machine 
than  by  the  hen ;  "  and  then,  you  know,"  he  added, 
"  hens'  time  is  worth  nothing."  In  every  estimate 
of  an  historian's  penetrative  and  persistent  research 
into  the  obscure  recesses  of  history,  his  time,  like  the 
time  of  the  hen  brooding  over  her  eggs,  is  popularly 
reckoned  as  worth  nothing.  Certainly  no  great  his- 
tory has  ever  been  written,  with  the  exception,  per- 
haps, of  Macaulay's,  which  at  all  remunerated  the 
historian  for  the  time  he  expended  on  his  work.  But 
Motley,  like  the  other  great  historians  of  his  period, 
despised  lucre  as  compared  with  fame,  and  was  willing 
to  consider  his  time  as  worth  nothing,  provided  he 
could  add  anything  to  historical  knowledge.  After 
his  "  brute  work "  was  done  —  a  work,  however, 
which  required  great  intellectual  discrimination  in 
the  separation  of  the  wheat  of  history  from  its  chaff 
—  he  sat  down  to  write  his  narrative  in  a  perfect 
glow  of  moral  and  mental  enthusiasm.  Hence  his 
style  is  not  only  spirited  and  impetuous,  but  joyous. 
Even  its  defects  testify  to  the  elation  of  heart  and 
brain  out  of  which  it  spontaneously  sprang.  Its 
fascination  to  the  reader  is  due  to  its  freshness, 
vivacity,  vigor,  brilliancy,  and  the  spirit  of  enjoyment 
manifest  in  every  page.  Its  faults  may  be  said  to 
come  from  the  excess  of  its  virtues.  What  is  called 
the  "  dignity  of  history  "  is  frequently  violated,  but 
this  violation  is  found  to  be  the  result  of  a  more  than 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  195 

common  effort  to  reach  the  reality  of  history.  Motley 
had  come  so  intimately  near  to  the  interior  life  of 
the  externally  august  personages  who  imposed  upon 
Europe  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries 
that  he  found  it  impossible  to  pay  any  proper  regard 
to  tlie  grandeur  of  their  station  and  the  splendor  of 
their  habiliments.  He  unfrocks  and  unclothes  priest 
and  king  alike,  and  exhibits  both  in  the  nudity  of 
their  essential  feebleness  or  wickedness.  He  leaves 
not  "  a  rag  of  righteousness "  on  the  form  of  any 
tyrant  or  bigot  whom  he  selects  for  exposure,  relent- 
lessly stripping  him  of  every  pretension  of  self-delu- 
sion and  self-justification  by  which  his  crimes  have 
been  heretofore  palliated.  He  is  among  the  first  of 
those  modern  historians  who  have  had  the  courage  to 
declare  that  the  old  tolerant  plea  of  "  sincerity "  in 
religious  belief  is  no  excuse  for  crimes  which  are 
committed  by  the  bigots  of  that  belief.  Inhuman 
depravity  is  not  vindicated  by  tracing  it  to  mistaken 
views  of  religious  obligation.  The  inhumanity  must 
condemn  either  the  man  or  his  belief. 

Motley's  power  of  characterization  is  specially  ex- 
hibited in  his  portraiture  of  Philip  the  Second  of 
Spain.  He  has  followed,  with  the  pitilessness  of 
justice,  the  whole  course  of  the  life  of  that  champion 
of  "  the  true  religion."  Every  low  amour  in  which 
he  indulged  is  as  well  known  to  him  as  to  the  transi- 
tory harlot  who  for  the  moment  attracted  the  Most 
Catholic  King's  appetites.  There  is  something  almost 
vindictive  in   the   patience  by  which  he   proves  the 


196  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

Most  Catholic  King's  violation  of  all  those  precepts 
of  Christianity  which  are  intended  to  restrain  sensual 
lusts.  That  Philip  ever  felt  toward  any  woman  that 
passion  which  poets  and  decent  men  call  love,  is 
demonstrated  by  Motley  to  have  been  an  impossibility. 
Ascending  from  vices  of  the  senses  to  vices  of  the 
soul,  the  relentless  historian  shows  him  to  have  been 
devoid  of  friendship  even  for  such  agents  of  his  will 
as  Alva  and  Farnese ;  that  there  was  no  good  in  him, 
and  that  of  all  the  base  and  cruel  men  of  his  time, 
he  was  the  basest  and  most  cruel,  —  worse  even  than 
the  instruments  he  employed  to  destroy  political  and 
spiritual  freedom  by  means  of  conquest  and  massacre. 
Motley  sustains  this  opinion  by  citations  from  Philip's 
private  letters,  and  there  is  hardly  a  dark  line  in  the 
portrait  which  is  not  confirmed  by  Philip's  own  hand. 
The  crowned  monster  hated  the  whole  human  race, 
and  from  his  birth  to  his  horrible  death  in  torments 
unutterable,  the  historian  paints  him  with  a  minute~ 
ness  of  touch  which  it  is  almost  frightful  to  contem- 
plate. Suetonius  has  black  passages  enough  in  his 
sketches  of  the  Caesars,  but  the  cumulative  effect  of 
Motley's  repeated  proofs  of  the  inhumanity  of  the 
second  Philip  exceeds  in  horror  many  of  the  most 
horrible  pictures  of  depravity  in  the  pages  of  the 
Roman   historian. 

It  is  curious  that  it  did  not  occur  to  Motley  while 
delineating  such  a  character,  who  was,  after  all,  next 
to  the  Pope,  the  head  of  Christendom,  that  Chris- 
tianity itself   was   a  religion  unsuited  to  the  fierce 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  197 

populations  of  Europe.  There  is  a  terrible  phrase  of 
the  Christian  Church,  meant  to  embody  all  its  holy 
wrath  against  a  possible  foe  of  its  precepts  and  tenets. 
That  })hrase  is  "Antichrist."  Now  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  according  to  the  principles  of  Christianity 
as  embodied  in  its  authentic  documents, "  Antichrist " 
was  perfectly  embodied  in  the  person  of  the  Most 
Catholic  King.  Christianity  is  essentially  humane ; 
Philip  was  essentially  inhuman.  There  is  not  a  pre- 
cept of  Christ  which  Philip  did  not  violate  on  system. 
How  much  more  sincere  would  it  have  been  for  hjm 
to  have  revived  the  graceful  heathenism  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  and  connected  it  as  a  point  of  faith  with 
the  sanguinary  practices  of  the  early  Druids,  than  to 
have  disgraced  Christianity  by  making  it  responsible 
for  acts  which  every  good-natured  worshipper  of  Jupi- 
ter and  Venus  would  have  recoiled  from  with  horror, 
and  which  no  Druid  priest  familiar  with  bloody  sacri- 
fices could  have  been  tempted  by  all  Philip's  mines  of 
gold  and  silver  in  the  new  America  to  indorse !  In 
reading  the  history  of  modern  Europe  one  is  con- 
stantly wondering  why  a  paganism  more  brutal  than 
that  which  obtained  in  Greece  and  Rome  —  a  paga- 
nism which  Socrates  and  Cicero  would  have  protested 
against  with  all  the  eloquence  of  instinctive  reason, 
morality,  and  humanity  —  should  have  dared  to  call 
itself  the  religion  of  Christ.  Perhaps  if  the  course  of 
Christianity  had  been  directed  to  the  East  rather  than 
to  the  West,  it  would  have  found  in  the  Buddhists  of 
Asia  more  consistent  disciples  than  it  has  ever  found 


198  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTOUIAN. 

in  the  "  civilized "  communities  of  Europe,  where, 
history  tells  us,  it  has  been  so  often  barbarously  and 
grotesquely  caricatured.  Philip's  God  was  a  combina- 
tion of  Belial  and  Moloch,  —  a  God  representing  a 
magnified  image  of  his  own  character.  Atheism  as  to 
such  a  deity  is  the  first  condition  of  Christian  faith. 
And  yet  he  shot,  hanged,  racked,  burned,  or  buried 
alive  all  men,  women,  and  children  who  refused  to 
worship  his  God,  —  that  is,  the  apotheosis  of  Philip  ! 

Philip  the  Second  is  Motley's  favorite  horror  in  his- 
toric characterization,  as  much  as  James  the  Second 
is  Macaulay's.  Both  portraits  are  elaborated  in  a 
similar  relentless  fashion,  epigram  coming  constantly 
in  to  add  new  zest  to  invective.  Indeed,  it  may  be 
said  that  Motley  hated  Philip  even  more  than  he 
hated  Mr.  Ex-Secretary  Fish,  and  Mr.  Ex-Under- 
Secretary  Bancroft  Davis.  But  his  masterpiece  in 
characterization  is,  on  the  whole,  the  "  Bearnese,"  — 
Henry  of  Navarre,  Henry  the  Fourth  of  Prance. 
Neither  in  English  nor  French  literature  is  to  be 
found  such  a  complete  representation  of  this  man  in 
all  the  variety  of  his  talents  and  accomplishments,  of 
his  virtues  and  his  vices,  as  Motley  has  given ;  and 
Motley  does  this  not  merely  by  analyzing  his  charac- 
ter, but  by  showing  him  to  us  as  he  was  in  council 
and  in  action.  Whenever  in  "  The  History  of  the 
United  Netherlands,"  or  "  The  Life  and  Death  of 
John  of  Barneveld,"  Henry  comes  upon  the  scene,  the 
reader  welcomes  him  as  an  auditor  in  a  theatre  wel- 
comes a  great  actor,  comic  or  tragic ;  for  he  knows 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  199 

that  there  is  in  store  for  him  a  short  period  of  intense 
and  unmitigated  enjo3^mcnt.     The   strange  levity  of 
Henry  the  Fourth  in  all  matters  of  religion,  his  tricks, 
his  lies,   his   libertinism,   his   unscrupulousness,   his 
determination  to  be  an  absolute  king,  are  all  vividly 
brought  out  in  connection  with  his  splendid  talents, 
his  position  as  the  Catholic  head  and  defender  of  the 
Protestant  interest  in  Europe,  his  cordial  detestation 
of  Spanish   and   Austrian  schemes  to  dominate  the 
mind  as  well  as  the  territory  of   the  Continent,  and 
the   magnificent  —  almost   the    mad  —  courage   with 
which  he  plunged  into  the  thick  of  a  battle,  with 
the  proud  command  to  his  nobles  and  men-at-arms, 
"  Follow  my  plume  !  "    Motley  seizes  the  distinctive 
characteristics   of  this  gay,  buoyant,   versatile,   and 
wnmoral  spirit,  and  preserves  the  unity  of  the  charac- 
ter amid  all  the  wide  varieties  of  its  manifestation. 
The   contrast   between   Henry,    whose    life    seemed 
passed  in   the  open  air,  and   his  rival,  the   gloomy, 
mediocre,  cowardly,  and   dyspeptic .  letter-writer  se- 
cluded in  the  Escurial,  who  sent  his  bloody  mandates 
over  Europe,  but  had  never  shown  any  gallantry  in 
the  field,  is  exhibited  by  Motley  in  its  most  piquant 
aspects.     It  may  be  added  that  it  is  curious  that  a 
scholar  like  Motley,  in  his  incessant  attempts  to  load 
Philip  with  ever  new  burdens  of  ridicule  and  dishonor, 
should  not  have  recalled  to  his  memory  that  deli- 
ciously  witty  scene,  in  "  The  Birds  "  of  Aristophanes, 
where  Prometheus  is   represented   as   coming   down 
from  the  skies  to  blab  the  secrets  of  the  gods  with  an 


200  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

umbrella  over  his  head  to  prevent  Jove  from  seeing 
him.  As  if  the  astute  Henry  of  Navarre,  the  cleverest 
rogue  in  Christendbm,  —  in  fact  with  a  touch  of  the 
"  Jupiter-Scapin  "  in  him,  —  could  not  detect  the  per- 
son and  movements  of  Philip  under  his  seemingly 
impenetrable  umbrella ! 

But  these  two  men,  prominent  as  they  are,  convey 
but  a  limited  notion  of  the  richness  and  variety  of 
Motley's  gallery  of  historical  characters.  In  "The 
Rise  of  the  Putch  Republic "  we  have  as  the  central 
figure  the  first  William  of  Orange.  Then  come  the 
Counts  Egmont  and  Horn ;  Cardinal  Granvelle  and 
the  Duchess  Margaret  of  Parma ;  Ruy  Gomez  da  Silva, 
Alva,  Requesens,  and  Don  John  of  Austria  ;  Louis  of 
Nassau  and  Saint  Aldegonde ;  the  Duke  of  Anjou, 
Charles  the  Ninth,  and  Henry  the  Third  of  France. 
These  are  but  a  few  among  many  marked  characters. 
Then  in  "  The  History  of  the  United  Netherlands  "  we 
have  Elizabeth  and  James  the  First ;  Leicester,  Burgh- 
ley,  Walsingham,  Buckhurst,  Howard  of  Effingham, 
Sir  Francis  Vere,  Sir  John  Norris,  Sir  Francis  Drake, 
Sir  John  Hawkins,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  the  Earl  of 
Essex,  the  Earl  of  Salisbury ;  the  three  great  generals 
of  the  age,  —  Prince  Maurice  of  Nassau,  Alexander  of 
Parma,  and  Spinola  ;  Guise,  Mayenne,  Coligny,  Sully, 
Duplessis-Mornay,  Henry  the  Fourth ;  the  Cardinal- 
Archduke  Albert,  the  Duke  of  Lerma,  Mendoza,  Me- 
dina-Sidonia,  Fuentes,  and  Philip  the  Third  of  Spain ; 
the  Popes  Paul  the  Fourth,  Paul  the  Fifth,  and  Sixtus 
the    Fifth ;    Hohenlo,   Heemskerk,    Barneveld,    and 


MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN.  201 

scores  of  others.  In  "  The  Life  and  Death  of  John  of 
BarncTcld  "  some  of  these  are  still  active  daring  the 
twelve  years'  truce  of  Holland  with  Spain,  and  we 
have  in  addition  masterly  portraits  of  Jacob  Arminius 
and  Hugo  Grotius  as  theologians ;  of  Prince  Maurice 
as  a  statesman  ;  of  Francis  Aerssens,  the  most  accom- 
plished of  diplomatists  ;  and  above  and  beyond  all,  of 
Barneveld  himself.  The  most  piquant  revelations  of 
the  pedantry  of  James  the  First  of  Great  Britain,  and 
of  the  libertinism  and  the  grand  speculative  views  on 
European  politics  of  Henry  the  Fourth  of  France,  are 
contained  in  these  last  volumes  from  Motley's  pen. 

In  description  our  American  historian  is  generally 
considered  to  hold  a  prominent  place  among  the  most 
picturesque  historians  of  the  century.  Take  Prescott 
at  his  best,  as  in  the  account  of  the  great  naval  battle 
of  Lepanto,  and  it  is  difficult  to  find  his  match  in  sim- 
ple force  and  clearness  of  representation,  for  the  facts 
are  placed  before  us  through  tlie  medium  of  words, 
and  yet  the  picture  formed  in  the  imagination  of  the 
reader  seems  to  be  independent  of  the  words  by  which 
it  is  conveyed.  Motley's  account  of  the  same  battle  is 
notoriously  inferior,  and,  indeed,  exhibits  him  at  his 
worst.  He  should  be  judged  by  his  vivid  picturing  of 
those  events  in  which  he  not  only  makes  his  reader 
the  witness  of  a  ceremony,  siege,  conflict,  or  martyr- 
dom, but  so  enlists  his  sympathies  that  he  is  as  it 
were  mentally  forced  to  become  a  participator  in  it. 
This  immediate  consciousness,  this  realizing  sense  of 
an  incident  which,  though  it  occurred  three  centuries 


202  MOTLEY,  THE  HISTORIAN. 

ago,  affects  the  reader  as  if  it  had  passed  yesterday 
before  his  very  eyes,  is  the  impression  which  Motley's 
best  descriptions  and  narrations  make  on  our  feelings 
and  imaginations.  Among  these  may  be  instanced  the 
account  of  the  executions  of  Egmont  and  Horn ;  the 
doings  of  the  Holy  Inquisition  in  the  Low  Countries ; 
the  conduct  of  the  heretics  when  they  were  doomed 
to  be  beheaded,  racked,  burned,  or  buried  alive ;  the 
"  Reign  of  Terror  and  Council  of  Blood  "  inaugurated 
by  Alva ;  the  sack  of  Zutphen  ;  the  siege  of  Haarlem ; 
the  siege  of  Leyden ;  the  sack  of  Antwerp  by  the 
Spanish  mutineers ;  the  siege  of  Maestricht ;  the 
"  French  fury  "  at  Antwerp  ;  the  assassination  of  Wil- 
liam of  Orange  ;  the  siege  of  Antwerp ;  the  defeat  of 
the  Spanish  Armada;  the  siege  and  battle  of  Nieu- 
port ;  the  siege  of  Ostend ;  the  passion  of  Henry  the 
Fourth  for  Margaret  de  Montmorency  ;  the  assassina- 
tion of  Henry ;  the  escape  of  Grotius ;  and  the  trial 
and  execution  of  Barneveld.  To  say  that  in  respect 
to  mere  interest  these  excel  any  fictitious  scenes  in 
ordinary  novels  is  to  do  but  scant  justice  to  the  power 
displayed  in  their  description.  They  absolutely  ab- 
sorb and  inthrall  the  attention  of  the  reader. 

It  is  necessary  to  pause  here,  not  for  want  of  mat- 
ter, but  for  want  of  space.  Yet  it  would  be  unjust 
to  Motley  not  to  emphasize  that  element  of  attractive- 
ness in  his  histories  which  is  derived  from  his  perso- 
nal character.  Those  who  knew  him  intimately  read 
his  works  with  the  same  delight  that  they  listened  to 
his  conversation,  when  some  great  question  of  justice 


MOTLEY,  TIIE  HISTORIAN.  203 

or  freedom  which  had  touched  his  heart  stimulated 
all  the  faculties  and  evoked  all  the  acquirements  of 
his  fertile  and  richly  stored  intellect,  and  when  he 
poured  forth  his  eloquence  in  a  torrent  of  speech 
every  wdrd  of  which  was  alive  with  a  generous  ardor 
for  truth  and  right,  and  a  noble  disdain  for  every- 
thing false,  mean,  base,  and  cruel.  As  the  historian 
of  liberty  in  its  early  struggles  with  political  and  ec- 
clesiastical despotism,  every  quality  of  his  large  and 
opulent  nature  found  frank  expression  in  his  books. 
The  reader  of  his  works  is  therefore  not  only  enriched 
by  the  new  facts  and  striking  thoughts  he  communi- 
cates, but  by  the  direct  communication  of  the  author's 
soul  to  his  own.  That  soul  was  the  soul  of  a  singu- 
larly noble,  sincere,  honorable,  and  intrepid  gentle- 
man, who  felt  the  mere  imputation  of  a  stain  as  a 
wound;  and  to  the  young  men  of  the  country  inti- 
macy with  such  a  spirit  through  his  writings  cannot 
but  exert  a  healthy  stimulus  on  all  that  is  best  both 
in  their  exertions  and  their  aspirations. 


» 

RECOLLECTIONS  OF  CHARLES   SUMNER. 

The  first  two  volumes  of  Mr.  E.  L.  Pierce's  excellent 
biography  of  Charles  Sumner  are  confined  to  what 
may  be  called  the  period  of  his  preparation  for  political 
life.  They  end  at  the  time  when  his  influence  as  a 
force  in  national  affairs  really  began.  The  abundant 
materials  which  Mr.  Pierce  has  in  his  possession  assure 
us  that  his  forth-coming  volumes  will  far  exceed  in 
interest  and  value  those  which  he  has  already  published. 
Meanwhile,  all  recollections  of  Sumner,  recorded  by 
friends  who  surveyed  him  from  various  points  of  view, 
cannot  but  aid  him  in  making  his  biography  complete. 
The  charm  of  Mr.  Pierce's  work,  so  far  as  it  is  pub- 
lished, is  the  absence  in  it  of  partisanship.  "Warm  as 
is  his  sympathy  with  his  subject,  he  is  not  specially 
affected  by  that  disease  of  admiration,  that  lues  Bos- 
weUiana,  that  furor  hiographicus,  which  Macaulay  de- 
clares "is  to  writers  of  lives  what  the  goitre  is  to  an 
Alpine  shepherd,  or  dirt-eating  to  a  negro  slave." 
Indeed,  he  generally  lets  Sumner  tell  his  own  story, 
without  any  of  those  exclamation-points  of  admiring 
wonder  which  generally  prove  that  the  biographer  is 
the  slave  rather  than  the  social  and  intellectual  equal 
of  the  man  whose  life  he  depicts. 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  205 

It  was  the  misfortune  of  Sumner  that,  more  than 
any  other  public  man  of  his  time,  he  was  subjected  to 
the  extremes  of  adulation  and  obloquy.  His  real 
character  can  hardly  be  discerned  amid  the  tumult  of 
puffs  and  scoffs,  of  exaltations  and  execrations,  which 
the  mere  mention  of  his  name  excited  during  his  pub- 
lic career.  Sumner  himself  was  inclined  to  take  the 
compliments  at  more  than  their  real  worth,  while  he 
experienced  another  though  different  satisfaction  in 
reading  the  calumnies.  The  compliments  he  consid- 
ered as  indications  that  all  lovers  of  liberty  and  justice 
were  on  his  side ;  the  calumnies  delighted  him,  because, 
as  they  grew  fiercer  and  fiercer,  they  seemed  to  prove 
that  his  blows  directed  at  slavery  and  injustice  were 
telling  more  and  more  against  the  enemies  of  freedom 
and  right.  It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  his  enjoyment 
was  more  intense  in  exhibiting  to  his  friends  the  pri- 
vate letters  from  distinguished  men,  abroad  and  at 
home,  which  exalted  him  to  the  skies,  or  in  spreading 
before  them  other  letters,  mostly  anonymous,  which 
damned  him  to  everlasting  infamy  as  the  foe  of  his 
country  and  of  the  human  race.  It  must  be  confessed 
that,  during  the  rebellion,  our  Southern  friends  did 
not  confine  themselves  within  the  limits  of  good  taste 
in  their  private  communications  to  their  Northern 
opponents.  It  is  impossible  for  me  to  compute  the 
number  of  times  that  Sumner's  soul  was  consigned  to 
perdition,  with  all  the  additions  of  superfluous  profanity 
known  to  gentlemen  in  whom  profanity  appears  to  be 
a  secretion  in  the  throat.    These  private  threats  and 


206  KECOLLECTIONS  QF 

public  denunciations  were  a  source  of  humorous  pleas- 
ure to  Sumner.  He  never  swore  as  an  individual ; 
nobody  ever  heard  an  oath  slip  from  his  lips  even  in 
his  ecstasies  of  philanthropic  rage  ;  but  he  was  the 
best  swearer  by  proxy  and  quotation  that  I  ever  lis- 
tened to.  The  oaths  launched  at  him  by  his  Southern 
enemies,  the  oaths  which  some  Republican  Senators 
would  occasionally  hurl  at  him  when  they  were  vexed 
by  his  obstinacy  in  clinging  to  his  own  view  of  a  party 
question  that  had  been  decided  against  him  by  a  ma- 
jority of  Republican  statesmen,  —  these,  in  narrating 
his  experiences  in  political  life  to  a  friend,  he  would 
roll  over  on  his  tongue  in  quite  an  unsanctified  but 
still  innocent  fashion,  and  laugh  at  the  profanity  as 
something  exquisitely  comical.  The  more  people  swore 
at  him,  the  more  delighted  he  was ;  and  it  is  a  pity 
that  he  did  not  have  the  same  sense  of  humor  in  esti- 
mating the  hyperboles  of  panegyric  addressed  to  him 
by  his  admirers,  which  he  unquestionably  had  in  esti- 
mating the  hyperboles  of  execration  shot  at  him  by 
his  assailants. 

My  acquaintance  with  Sumner  preceded  by  a  few 
years  his  celebrated  oration  on  "  The  True  Grandeur 
of  Nations,"  delivered  in  Boston  on  the  Fourth  of  July, 
1845.  He  had  recently  come  back  from  Europe,  after 
one  of  the  most  successful  social  campaigns  which  a 
young  American  had  ever  made  abroad.  From  the 
first  I  was  attracted  by  his  grand,  cordial  way  of  re- 
ceiving even  a  chance  acquaintance ;  and  I  soon  came 
to  love  him  very  much,  as  did  scores  of  other  young 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  207 

men,  wlio  dropped  occasionally  into  his  law  office  for 
an  hour's  conversation.  We  all  had  a  special  liking 
for  some  English,  or  French,  or  German  author  ;  and 
here  was  a  man  who  had  seen  and  conversed  with  our 
particular  idol  a  year  or  two  ago,  who  was  still  in 
familiar  correspondence  with  him,  and  was  willing  to 
show  us,  in  confidence,  a  letter  from  him  dated  only 
a  month  before.  Sumner  thus  consumed  in  private 
conversation  with  us  and  other  more  learned  loungers 
a  vast  amount  of  time  which  probably  should  have 
been  devoted  to  establishing  himself  in  his  profession. 
Whether  he  would  have  ever  become  a  great  advocate 
or  a  great  judge,  had  he  devoted  his  whole  energies 
and  his  constantly  accumulating  stores  of  legal  learn- 
ing to  the  profession  of  the  law,  it  is  difficult  to  say. 
My  impression  of  him,  in  1843,  was  this,  — that  he  was 
a  man  who  would  devote  himself  to  assisting  and  cheer- 
ing on  others  to  eminence  rather  than  strive  to  become 
eminent  himself.  He  was  even  then  a  philanthropist, 
a  lover  of  mankind,  to  the  very  core  of  his  nature.  In 
conversing  with  him  I  found  that  all  his  study  of  his- 
tory had  impressed  him  with  a  horror  of  war,  that  all 
his  study  of  law  had  kindled  his  soul  into  an  ambition 
to  make  jurisprudence  identical  with  ethics,  and  that 
his  mind  was  specially  bent  on  schemes  which  pro- 
posed such  an  extension  of  the  law  of  nations  that  all 
conflicts  of  nations  with  each  other  should  be  decided 
hereafter  by  tribunals  on  principles  of  reason  and  jus- 
tice, and  that  the  sword  should  be  appealed  to  only 
after  every  moral  restraint  on  the  passions  of  men  had 


208  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

been  urged  in  vain.  He  not  only  quoted  in  illustration 
of  his  conception  all  great  writers  on  international 
law,  but  he  was  particularly  interesting  in  citing  the 
unpublished  opinions  of  eminent  living  European 
jurists  with  whom  he  had  conversed  on  the  subject, 
and  who  confided  to  him  aspirations  in  the  direction 
of  his  own  ideal  of  a  Congress  of  Nations,  which  they 
probably  would  not  have  risked  their  reputations  as 
practical  men  by  putting  into  print.  This  ambition 
to  extend  the  scope  of  international  law  was  never 
absent  from  his  mind;  and  later  in  life,  when  he  made 
his  celebrated  speech  on  "  Constructive  Claims,"  all 
who  knew  him  intimately  must  have  felt  that  he  was 
aiming  at  an  addition  to  the  laws  of  nations,  that  he 
was  innovating  on  the  established  code  while  he  was 
seemingly  only  expounding  it.  On  the  occasion  of  his 
last  visit  to  Great  Britain,  after  the  Treaty  of  Wash- 
ington had  been  concluded,  I  laughingly  asked  him,  as 
we  shook  hands  on  the  wharf,  if  he  were  going  to 
England  to  collect  his  "  constructive  claims."  He 
laughed  in  return  ;  but  he  added  :  "  I  can  tell  you  one 

fact  you  do  not  know.     Lord said  to  me,  a  few 

weeks  ago, '  Mr.  Sumner,  had  you  not  made  that  speech, 
we  should  not  be  here  to  negotiate  the  treaty  which 
has  just  been  happily  concluded.'  So,  you  see,  in  mak- 
ing that  speech,  which  has  resulted  in  arbitration,  I 
knew  what  I  was  about.  The  arbitration  in  this 
case  may  not  be  very  satisfactory ;  indeed,  I  voted  for 
the  treaty  only  under  great  stress  from  friends  whose 
arguments  did  not  altogether  convince  my  judgment ; 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  209 

but  the  establishment  of  the  principle  of  arbitration 
must  still  be  considered  a  great  advance  on  the  old 
ways  of  diplomatic  intercourse  between  nations.  And 
you  will  fmd  that  Great  Britain  will  never,  in  any 
future  war,  place  herself  again  in  the  predicament  in 
which  my  speech  demonstrates  she  was  placed  in  the 
matter  of  the  rebel  cruisers." 

But  my  object  at  present  is  to  show  what  a  delight 
it  was  to  hear  Sumner  tell  anecdotes  of  his  experience 
of  English  life  after  he  had  returned  from  his  first 
joyous  visit  to  England,  and  when  he  was  still  a  young 
man,  full  of  enthusiasm  for  literature  as  well  as  for 
jurisprudence,  and  thoroughly  enjoying,  in  endless 
talk  with  chance  visitors,  the  leisure  of  a  lawyer  with- 
out clients,  before  the  lawyer  had  been  tempted  to 
appear  publicly  in  the  field  of  either  philanthropic 
enterprise  or  political  discussion.  Laying  his  head 
far  back  on  his  chair,  and  indolently  stretching  his 
long  legs  to  the  full  length  of  their  possible  extension, 
he  would  discourse  for  hours  on  every  subject  and 
every  personage  which  the  questions  of  his  visitors 
aroused  in  his  singularly  tenacious  memory.  "  Did 
you  meet  Talfourd,  Mr.  Sumner,  while  you  were  in 
England  ?"  "  Oh,  yes  ;  and  that  reminds  me  of  a  lu- 
dicrous incident  connected  with  Dr.  Channing's  send- 
ing him  his  lecture  on  temperance.  Channing,  you 
know,  was  captivated,  as  all  of  us  were,  by  Talfourd's 
exquisite  tragedy  of  '  Ion.'  Well,  he  sent  his  pamphlet 
to  Talfourd,  with  the  full  assurance  that  the  author  of 
such  a  dramatic  poem  would  gladly  receive  a  'lecture 

U 


210  RECOLLECTIONS  OE 

so  full  of  moral  truths  ;  but  the  good  doctor  forgot  to 
prepay  the  postage.  In  the  condition  of  the  postage 
laws  at  that  time  the  sum  demanded  for  it  was  very 
large,  and  Talfourd  refused  to  take  it  from  the  office. 
Meanwhile  it  was  exhibited  among  the  letters  and 
documents  uncalled  for  ;  and  at  last  the  envelope  be- 
came so  torn  that  the  subject,  as  well  as  the  name  of 
the  person  to  whom  it  was  addressed,  became  visible 
to  the  public  eye.  Talfourd  was  unmercifully  quizzed 
by  the  members  of  his  special  club  on  his  unwilling- 
ness to  take  out  from  the  office  such  a  precious  docu- 
ment, especially  as  its  subject  indicated  that  it  had 
some  particular  reference  to  him.  I  happened  to  be 
at  the  club  one  night,  or  rather  morning,  when  Tal- 
fourd came  in  from  the  House  of  Commons,  which  had 
just  adjourned.  After  calling  for  broiled  bones  and 
claret,  he  beckoned  me  to  his  table,  and  asked  some 
questions  regarding  this  Dr.  Channing.  Of  course  I 
told  him  what  a  noble  philanthropist  Channing  was, 
and  how  greatly  he  was  esteemed  by  the  best  men  in 
the  United  States.  '  Well,  Sumner,'  was  his  reply, '  I 
wish,  if  you  see  him  on  your  return,  you  would  beg 
him  to  send  me  no  more  of  his  pamphlets  without  pay- 
ing the  postage ;  and  you  may  add,  though  it  may  be 
at  the  expense  of  my  character  for  sobriety,  which  is 
unimpeached,  that  I  belong,  like  my  friend  Charles 
Lamb,  to  the  tipsy  school.' " 

And  then,  perhaps,  the  querist  might  be  one  who 
had  heard  of  the  breakfasts  where  men  of  letters  met 
each  other  at  the  table  of  Samuel  Rogers.     "Have 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  211 

you  ever,  Mr.  Sumner,  been  present  at  one  of  these?  " 
"  Many  times,"  was  the  reply  ;  "  but  you  must  uot  be 
deluded  with  the  idea  that  the  feeling  among  the  per- 
sons invited  to  them  was  always  cordial  and  friendly. 
I  remember,  on  one  occasion,  after  we  had  sat  down 
at  the  table,  Rogei-s  remarked  that  a  prominent  law- 
yer and  writer  whom  he  named,  though  invited,  had  not 
yet  appeared.  Then  came  a  series  of  bitter  sarcasms 
directed  at  the  absent  but  expected  guest,  to  which 
the  host  blandly  contributed  his  full  share.  Sud- 
denly the  object  of  this  combined  attack  entered  the 
room,  when  Rogers  rose,  shook  hands  with  him  in  his 

most  charming  way,  and  added, '-  Ah !  my  dear , 

how  glad  we  are  to  see  you  !  "We  were  just  speaking 
of  you  as  you  came  in ! ' "  Sumner,  indeed,  keenly 
perceived  the  organized  hypocrisy  which  constitutes 
the  formal  politeness  at  great  London  dinner  and 
breakfast  parties,  and  knew  how  much  conceit,  envy, 
hatred,  and  malice  may  be  expressed  without  any 
violation  of  "  good  manners." 

Again,  some  visitor  might  ask,  "  Did  you  ever  meet 
Macaulay?"  And  Sumner  would  answer :"  That  re- 
minds me  of  a  curious  circumstance  in  my  London 
experience.  At  a  dinner  at  Lord  Lansdowne's  the 
question  of  codification  came  up  for  discussion,  and  I 
was  appealed  to  as  an  American  to  give  what  informa- 
tion I  could  as  to  how  far  the  laws  of  the  separate 
States  and  the  United  States  had  Ijcen,  harmonized 
into  a  code.  I  answered  in  general  terms.  A  gentle- 
man who  sat  opposite  to  me  at  the  table,  and  who  had 


212  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

not  spoken  before,  then  began  to  put  to  me  a  series  of 
questions.  Tliey  were  so  searching,  and  were  so  evi- 
dently intended  to  get  at  the  very  root  of  the  matter, 
that  I  was  driven  from  point  to  point,  knowing  all  the 
time  that  I  must  in  the  end  come  to  the  exact,  the 
real  advance  that  our  country  had  made  in  this  direc- 
tion. This  terrible  fellow  was  content  with  no  gen- 
eralities. His  penetrating  analysis  went  pitilessly  on, 
every  new  question  presenting  new  difficulties  for  me 
to  clear  up ;  but  while  I  was  drawing  on  all  my  re- 
sources of  information  to  answer  him,  I  felt  confident 
in  my  own  mind  that  the  questioner  was  Macaulay, 
though  I  was  then  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  he  had  re- 
turned from  India.  And  I  was  right ;  it  wa%  Macau- 
lay.  He  was  fresh  from  his  great  work  on  the  India 
penal  code,  and  knew  more  about  codification  than  any 
English  lawyer  at  the  table.  And,  by  the  way,  per- 
haps you  have  heard  of  the  sarcasms  that  his  legal 
opponents  launched  against  that  code.  I  was  told  in 
legal  circles  that  though  it  had  cost  the  government  a 
guinea  a  word,  it  was  utterly  impracticable."  And  it 
may  be  added  here  that  Macaulay's  code,  with  some 
modifications,  has  only  been  recently  adopted  by  the 
Indian  government.  It  had  to  undergo  a  storm  of 
opposition  lasting  forty  years  before  its  merits  were 
recognized. 

The  defect  of  Sumner  as  a  relator  of  such  memories 
as  these  was  his  disposition  to  be  too  minute  and  cir- 
cumstantial in  his  narrative.  His  imaginative  mem- 
ory was  roused  when  he  was  asked  any  question  as  to 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  213 

his  intercourse  with  an  eminent  man,  and  he  recalled 
in  a  dreamy  way  the  irrelevant  as  well  as  the  relevant 
incidents  which  were  connected  with  it.  Thus  he 
would  consume  ten  minutes  in  telling  a  story  which  a 
man  like  Choate  would  have  flashed  upon  his  hearer 
in  one. 

During  all  the  early  period  to  which  I  refer,  Sumner 
appeared  to  be  a  thorough  philanthropist  in  thought 
and  feeling,  rather  than  a  man  capable  of  putting 
philanthropy  into  aggressive  action,  and  of  becoming 
a  great  public  force.  In  listening  to  him  one  got  the 
impression  of  a  certain  indolence  of  nature,  which 
would  be  content  with  uttering  moral  opinions  with- 
out backing  them  up  with  moral  might.  Suddenly, 
as  by  a  flash  of  lightning,  the  forces  which  had  been 
silently  gathering  in  his  soul  during  long  studies,  long 
meditations,  and  long  conversations  on  moral  ideas, 
broke  out  in  a  Fourth-of-July  oration.  His  subject 
was  "  The  True  Grandeur  of  Nations ; "  the  occasion 
was  the  commemoration  of  Independence-day,  which 
the  municipality  of  Boston  celebrates  annually  with 
an  oration  and  other  fire-works.  The  great  success  of 
Sumner  was  due  to  the  fact  that  his  oration  was  stu- 
diously framed  so  as  to  be  utterly  mappropriate  to  the 
occasion.  It  happened  that  a  considerable  number  of 
army  and  navy  officers  were  present,  some  of  them 
suggesting  to  the  audience  memories  of  the  war  of 
1812.  Foreseeing  that  there  was  to  be  a  kind  of  be- 
nevolent mischief  in  Sumner's  oration,  I  took  a  posi- 
tion at  the  extreme  end  of  the  hall  in  which  it  was 


214  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

delivered,  in  order  to  watch  its  effect  on  the  counte- 
nances of  the  bewildered  or  belligerent  auditors  as  his 
famous  plea  for  peace  was  developed,  each  proposition 
illustrated  by  some  vivid  picture  of  the  horrors  of  war, 
and  both  propositions  and  pictures  relentlessly  leading 
to  the  conclusion  that  among  communities  of  reason- 
able and  Christian  men  war  should  be  abolished.  The 
contrast  between  the  expenses  of  supporting  Harvard 
College  and  the  man-of-war  "  Ohio,"  then  floating  in 
Boston  harbor,  together  with  his  somewhat  clumsy  ridi- 
cule of  the  spangled  costume  by  which  an  officer  of  the 
militia  is  distinguished  by  his  dress  from  an  ordinary 
citizen,  must  have  been  resented  as  an  inexpiable  of- 
fence not  only  by  the  captains  and  commodores  of  the 
regular  army  and  navy  who  were  present  in  full  regi- 
mentals, but  by  the  militia  officers  whose  companies 
escorted  the  procession  to  the  hall,  and  who  altogether 
outshone  their  professional  brethren  in  the  freshness 
and  brilliancy  of  their  military  accoutrements.  The 
whole  scene,  as  1  viewed  it  from  the  outside,  seemed 
to  me  so  deliciously  humorous  that  I  fear  the  moral 
grandeur  of  Sumner's  sentiments  did  not  impress  me 
half  as  much  as  his  almost  child-like  innocence  while 
he  went  on  dealing  stab  after  stab  to  estimable  servants 
of  the  United  States,  who  had  come  there  with  the  rea- 
sonable expectation  that  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  at  least, 
they  would  not  only  be  honorably  mentioned,  but 
might  also  count  on  being  overwhelmed  by  a  multi- 
tude of  those  hollow  compliments  which  on  such  occa- 
sions are  ordinarily  lavished  on  "  the  brave  defenders 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  215 

of  the  country,  whether  on  land  or  sea."  They  could 
not  have  dreamed  that  the  usclessncss  of  their  profes- 
sion would  bo  the  orator's  theme,  when  they  remem- 
bered how  scanty  were  their  emoluments,  and  how 
severe  was  the  code  of  professional  honor  which  pre- 
vented them  from  resorting  to  those  ignoble  contri- 
vances by  which  many  civil  officers  of  the  government 
increased  their  meagre  "  wage"  by  illicit  and  unlaw- 
ful gains.  Sumner,  as  might  naturally  have  been 
expected,  was  called  to  account  by  many  speakers  in 
the  dinner  that  followed  in  Faneuil  Hall ;  but  he 
bore  his  punishment  meekly ;  and  the  peculiar  fasci- 
nation of  his  smile  was  never  more  charmingly 
apparent  than  during  the  time  he  sweetly  listened  to 
the  diatribes  of  his  angry  opponents,  even  when  his 
friend  Dr.  Palfrey  felt  himself  compelled  to  join  in 
the  chorus  of  dissent. 

On  the  next  day  his  law  office  was  beset  by  friends 
and  foes  alike.  The  remonstrants  were  there  in  great 
force ;  and  Sumner  had  to  reply  oif-hand  to  those  who 
agreed  with  him  in  full,  to  those  who  half  agreed  with 
him,  and  to  those  who  totally  disagreed  with  him. 
For  hours  he  was  mobbed  by  a  successive  crowd  of 
intelligent  men,  whose  questions  were  so  searching 
that  a  speech  longer  than  his  oration  would  have 
been  required  to  answer  them  ;  and  sympathizers 
were  almost  as  difficult  for  Sumner  to  manage  as 
non-sympathizers.  Hillard,  whose  office  was  con- 
nected with  Sumner's,  —  divided  only  by  a  door,  — 
and    who   was    then    in   close  friendship  with  him, 


216  KECOLLECTIONS  OP 

quietly  remarked  to  me,  amidst  the  din  of  voices : 
"  What  folly  is  all  tliis !  Each  of  these  men  professes 
to  be  a  Christian ;  Sumner,  as  I  understand  it,  has 
simply  applied  the  principles  of  Christianity  to  war, 
and  he  has  raised  a  tumult  fiercer  than  if  he  had 
insulted  Boston,  on  the  national  anniversary,  by  an 
open  profession  of  paganism." 

In  a  few  months  after  this  oration  on  the  Fourth  of 
July,  1845,  it  became  evident  that  Sumner  had  estab- 
lished himself  as  a  power  among  two  classes  of  our 
New  England  population  which  it  is  never  safe  for  any 
politician  or  statesman  to  disregard  or  despise;  name- 
ly, earnest,  progressive  clergymen,  and  warm-hearted, 
cultivated  women.  In  speaking  of  "  cultivated"  wom- 
en, it  is  of  course  implied  that  the  phrase  includes  not 
only  those  women  of  large  hearts  who  have  been  high- 
ly educated  as  to  the  knowledge  of  many  languages 
and  many  literatures,  but  those  women  who  have  been 
trained  in  the  austere  discipline  of  practical  life  to  re- 
gard moral  obligations  as  the  most  important  and  per- 
manent of  all  the  ties  on  which  civil  society  rests, 
though  they  may  speak  no  language  but  their  own, 
and  have  read  but  few  books  except  the  Bible  and 
"  Pilgrim's  Progress."  The  influence  which  Sumner 
early  obtained  among  these  sources  of  real  power 
went  on  increasing  to  the  day  of  his  death.  There 
was  from  the  first  something  feminine,  though  not 
effeminate,  in  the  delicacy  of  his  perception  of  moral 
obligations. 

Meanwhile    a    considerable   portion  of   intelligent, 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  217 

practical  men  honestly  delivered  their  opinion  that 
Sumner  was,  in  the  most  expressive  term  of  Yankee 
contempt, "  a  greenhorn."  They  saw  clearly  that  war 
was  a  hateful  condition  of  human  affairs  to  which 
all  "  Christian"  states  must  be  at  times  exposed ;  that 
preparations  for  possible  wars  should  properly  enter 
into  the  economy  of  all  strong  governments  ;  that  the 
precepts  of  the  Christian  religion  were  historically 
proved  to  be  weak  against  human  avarice  and  human 
ambition ;  and  that  the  best  way,  on  the  whole,  to  pre- 
vent war  was  to  be  prepared  for  it.  These  men  did 
not  add  that  the  great  provocations  to  war  were  moral, 
springing  from  the  stalwart  assertion  of  the  rights  of 
man  against  the  oppressions  of  privileged  men ;  that 
there  could  be  no  peace  as  long  as  any  man  was  de- 
prived of  his  rights ;  and  that  the  fiery  philanthropists 
who  appear  as  the  champions  of  reason,  justice,  and 
peace,  who  denounce  religious  superstition  and  polit- 
ical tyranny  in  words  which  stir  multitudes  into  re- 
volt against  what  is  truly  revolting,  are  the  most 
efficient  provokers  of  war. »  When  they  ask  this  king 
or  that  aristocracy  to  combine  with  other  kings  and 
other  aristocracies  to  prevent  the  nations  they  rule 
from  indulging  in  the  expensive  expedient  of  war,  they 
suppose  a  condition  of  things  which  would  reduce  the 
people  they  rule  into  a  weak  submission  to  servitude, 
against  which  human  nature,  at  least  in  Europe  and 
the  United  States,  instinctively  uprises  with  arms  in 
its  hands.  Fifteen  or  sixteen  years  after  the  oration 
which   first   made  him  prominent  among  the  public 


218  RECOLLECTIONS  OE 

men  of  the  country,  Sumner's  earnest  preaching  of 
the  seemingly  peaceful  doctrine  of  right  and  justice 
ended  in  making  him  one  of  the  most  prominent  of 
those  American  statesmen  who,  in  the  most  frightful 
of  civil  wars  recorded  in  history,  were  for  waging  war 
to  its  utmost  limits,  until  justice  and  right  were  estab- 
lished throughout  the  land.  He  would,  of  course, 
have  preferred  that  the  dread  arbitrament  of  war 
should  have  been  avoided ;  but  when  it  came,  who  was 
more  vehement  than  he  to  prosecute  it  on  principles 
that  could  end  only  with  the  entire  prostration  of  the 
South  ?  Most  wars,  indeed,  when  waged  in  civilized 
states,  are  either  the  direct  or  remote  results  of  the 
insurrection  of  the  human  heart,  the  human  con- 
science, and  the  human  reason  against  the  attempt  of 
a  few  privileged  men  to  degrade  human  nature  itself 
by  an  insolent  assertion  of  superiority  over  the  great 
mass  of  mankind. 

But  to  return  to  the  immediate  subject.  Sumner's 
reputation  grew  day  by  day,  as  the  great  Christian 
layman  of  New  England,  from  the  time  the  oration 
on  "  The  True  Grandeur  of  Nations  "  was  published. 
The  peace  societies  naturally  welcomed  so  eloquent  an 
adherent;  but  the  series  of  speeches  and  addresses 
which  followed  it,  with  his  favorite  emphasis  on 
Right,  —  always  prominent,  with  a  capital  R,  or  with 
the  whole  word  in  capitals,  —  so  worked  into  the  mind 
and  moral  sentiment  of  Massachusetts  that  he  became 
at  last  the  Senator  of  that  State  in  Congress,  by  the 
operation  of  the  Darwinian  law  of  natural  selection 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  219 

and  "  the  survival  of  the  fittest "  among  the  contend- 
ing politicians  who  desired  to  obtain  the  place. 

In  184G,  a  year  after  his  Fourth-of-July  oration,  he 
made  a  new  application  of  its  principles  in  his  noble 
Phi  Beta  address  at  Cambridge,  on  "  The  Scholar,  the 
Jurist,  the  Artist,  the  Philanthropist."  The  men  se- 
lected to  represent  these  were  John  Pickering,  Joseph 
Story,  Washington  Allston,  and  William  Ellery  Chan- 
ning.  Having  been  present  on  the  occasion  of  the  de- 
livery of  this  oration,  I  can  bear  testimony  to  the  gen- 
eral enthusiasm  with  which  it  was  received  both  by  the 
old  and  the  young  men  who  were  present ;  the  tribute 
to  Judge  Story,  especially,  was  the  best  compact  state- 
ment that  has  ever  been  made  of  Story's  real  contribu- 
tions to  jurisprudence,  considered  as  a  science.  And 
yet  a  young  sprig  of  the  law,  hardly  out  of  his  legal 
teens,  superciliously  remarked  to  one  of  his  compan- 
ions, as  he  left  the  hall,  that  the  whole  speech  sounded 
to  him  as  if  it  were  made  up  out  of  four  rejected  obit- 
uary notices ;  and  the  joke  made  him  quite  a  reputa- 
tion among  the  whole  body  of  young  gentlemen  of  his 
turn  of  mind,  whose  wit  consisted  in  sneering  at  any 
man  who  was  so  demented  as  to  be  inspired  by  any 
moral  enthusiasm  whatever  for  what  Sumner  emphat- 
ically called  the  "  Right." 

But  the  special  criticism  on  Sumner,  advanced  even 
by  some  persons  whose  minds  were  absorbed  in  ques- 
tions relating  to  philanthropy,  was  this,  —  that  he 
was  a  pedantic  philanthropist.  If  there  is  one  among 
Sumner's  many  orations  which  may  be  selected  from 


220  RECOLLECTIONS  OE 

the  rest  as  pre-eminently  able,  it  is  his  college  address 
(1848)  on  "The  Law  of  Human  Progress."  After 
having  delivered  it  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  So- 
ciety of  Union  College,  Schenectady,  New  York,  he 
repeated  it  before  scores  of  popular  lyceums  in  New 
England  and  New  York.  The  audiences  were  doubt- 
less amazed  that  a  proposition  which  they  were  pre- 
pared to  accept  without  question  was  historically 
considered,  that  the  obscure  hints  of  the  law  in  an- 
cient poets  and  philosophers  were  elaborately  set 
forth,  and  that  the  theories  of  Descartes,  Pascal,  Vico, 
Leibnitz,  Lessing,  Perrault,  Fontenelle,  Turgot,  Con- 
dorcet,  and  a  host  of  other  modern  writers  were  quoted 
to  prove  his  ultimate  conclusion,  that,  in  the  words  of 
Pascal,  the  succession  of  men,  as  they  appear  age  after 
age,  may  be  regarded  as  one  man,  "  who  lives  always, 
and  learns  continually."  A  quick-witted  woman,  who 
had  heard  the  lecture  at  a  village  lyceum,  told  me  that 
when  Sumner  first  announced  his  proposition,  she 
agreed  to  it  at  once  as  an  obvious  truth.  "  But,"  she 
added,  "  when  he  went  on,  summoning  this  and  that 
great  man  of  whom  I  had  never  heard  to  testify  to  its 
validity,  I  began  to  grow  suspicious ;  the  truism  took 
on  more  and  more  the  character  of  a  paradox ;  and 
after  his  citations  of  authorities  had  come  to  an  end,  I 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  human  progress  was  one 
of  Sumner's  benevolent  heresies,  and  was  inclined  to 
disbelieve  in  it  altogether." 

Yet  the  value  of  Sumner's  historical  method   of 
treating  the  genealogy  of  freedom,  and  the  importance 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  221 

that  his  large  legal  and  general  learning  gave  to  his 
arguments  for  human  rights,  were  at  once  evident 
when  he  became  a  member  of  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States,  and  plunged  into  a  hand-to-hand  and  mind-to- 
mind  fight  with  the  accomplished  lawyers  and  debat- 
ers who  thought,  or  pretended  to  think,  that  the  tru- 
isms accepted  at  most  New  England  firesides  were 
damnable  paradoxes,  which  all  friends  of  the  Union 
and  the  Constitution  must  passionately  denounce  or 
derisively  reject.  Then  the  laborious  antiquarian  of 
liberty  came  in  to  reinforce  its  resolute  champion, 
citing  precedents  as  fluently  as  he  asserted  principles, 
and  basing  the  disputed  proposition  that  two  and  two 
make  four  on  a  mass  of  accredited  authorities  in  mat- 
ters of  government  and  legislation  which  were  entire- 
ly independent  of  the  judgments  of  his  own  intellect 
and  the  monitions  of  his  own  individual  conscience. 
Thus  he  could  not  be  contemptuously  dismissed  by 
his  brother  Senators  as  a  mere  "  freedom  screecher," 
for  he  screeched  Grotius  and  Puffendorf ;  screeched 
L'HSpital  and  Turgot ;  screeched  Hale,  Holt,  Mans- 
field, Chatham,  Camden,  Burke,  and  Fox  ;  screeched 
Washington,  Jefferson,  Hamilton,  Madison,  Jay,  Mar- 
shall, Jackson,  Story,  and  Webster,  and  never  seemed 
to  indulge  in  an  impulse  of  enthusiasm  without  having 
in  his  brain  an  authority  which  justified  the  words 
that  came  hot  from  his  heart.  Therefore,  what  struck 
popular  audiences  as  pedantry  became,  when  Sumner 
entered  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  an  element 
of  power.     His  legal  opponents,  treating  him  at  first 


222  RECOLLECTIONS  OE 

as  a  mere  enthusiast,  were  soon  forced  to  admit  that 
the  briefless  barrister  they  affected  to  despise  had  em- 
ployed the  time  which  they  had  spent  in  the  practice 
of  the  law  in  local  courts,  with  fat  fees  as  the  just 
reward  of  their  industry,  in  a  patient  and  prolonged 
study  of  every  branch  of  law,  national  and  interna- 
tional ;  that  he  was  intimately  acquainted  with  the 
most  important  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  and  of  the  judgments  of  the  State  tri- 
bunals so  far  as  they  bore  on  the  subject  which  hap- 
pened to  be  under  discussion  ;  and  that  the  attempt  to 
put  him  down  by  technical  objections  ended  in  rous- 
ing a  kind  of  legal  porcupine,  bristling  all  over  with 
technicalities,  and  shooting  out  his  pointed  quills  to  the 
right  and  the  left,  never  more  delighted  than  when  his 
political  enemies  called  forth  the  special  capacity  in 
which  he  pre-eminently  excelled.  His  vast  memory 
became  indeed  "  a  tremendous  engine  of  legislative 
oppression "  when  its  stores  of  precedents,  legal  or 
historical,  were  called  forth  by  the  questions,  the 
taunts,  the  sneers,  or  the  invectives  of  his  political 
adversaries. 

The  great  body  of  the  reformers  and  philanthropists 
of  the  country  at  last  settled  on  Sumner  as  their  man, 
because  they  found  that  in  a  national  assembly  which 
included  lawyers  and  jurists  he  could  bring  learning 
to  the  aid  of  moral  enthusiasm,  and  hunt  up  pre- 
cedents to  sustain  all  the  principles  which  he  and  they 
mutually  advocated.  This  was  all  the  more  impor- 
tant,  because  such   a  combination   of  the  technical 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  223 

lawyer  and  the  philanthropic  statesman  was  a  rare 
phenomenon  in  our  politics.  They  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  though  four  added  to  four  made  eight 
in  the  minds  of  simple  people,  it  might  mean  nine  or 
eighty-eight  in  the  minds  of  members  of  Congress ; 
and  they  witnessed  with  ever-increasing  admiration 
the  long  array  and  immense  weight  of  the  authorities 
which  the  Senator  from  Massachusetts  brought  to  bear 
on  this  proposition  of  moral  arithmetic,  when  its  sound- 
ness was  vehemently  questioned  by  eminent  publicists 
both  from  the  South  and  North.  But  as  Pulteney,  the 
great  opponent  of  Walpole,  said,  nearly  a  century  and  a 
half  ago,  "  The  heads  of  parties  are,  like  the  heads  of 
snakes,  carried  on  by  the  tails  ; "  and  Sumner  was  the 
head  of  a  party  within  his  party,  which  was  clamor- 
ous for  every  new  advance  in  the  path  which  event- 
ually led  to  negro  emancipation.  He  developed  by 
degrees  a  kind  of  moral  implacability,  derived  from 
the  uncompromising  ethical  fierceness  of  his  chief  sup- 
porters. He  could  bear  ordinary  taunts  and  invectives 
with  fortitude,  but  when  suspicions  were  suggested 
that  he  was  not  up  to  the  requirements  of  "  the  party 
of  right,"  he  was  greatly  disturbed.  The  charge  that 
any  one  was  ahead  of  him  in  the  legislative  champion- 
ship of  justice  and  freedom,  and  had  grounds  for 
inveighing  against  his  short-comings  in  the  cause, 
inflicted  on  him  an  immedicable  wound,  unless  it  was 
healed  by  an  immediate  proposal  of  some  new  measure, 
which  it  might  take  a  year  of  debate  to  get  organized 
into  a  law. 


224  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

Sumner  was  early  accused  of  the  foible  or  vice 
of  vanity,  and  the  accusation  was  repeated  again  and 
again  up  to  the  day  of  his  death.  He  was  doubtless 
open  to  the  charge ;  but  it  is  extremely  difficult  for 
anybody  who  knew  him  intimately  and  loved  him 
heartily  to  state  the  peculiar  form  this  foible  assumed, 
considered  as  one  of  the  many  ingredients  which  went 
to  make  up  his  character,  so  that  those  who  knew 
him  not  can  view  it  in  its  relations  with  the  nobler 
and  predominating  qualities  of  his  nature.  To  him 
there  was  a  glory,  perhaps  sometimes  a  vain-glory, 
in  doing  a  good  act,  in  making  a  good  speech,  or  in 
writing  a  good  book.  If,  in  the  early  days  of  his 
career,  anything  done  by  himself  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  men  he  esteemed,  he  delighted  in  showing  to 
his  intimate  acquaintances  the  flattering  letters  he  re- 
ceived ;  but  he  delighted  even  more  in  the  success  of 
his  friends.  If  Hillard  wrote  a  notable  article  in  the 
"  North  American  Review,"  if  Longfellow  published  a 
new  poem,  or  Prescott  a  new  history,  or  Lieber  a  new 
work  on  the  philosophy  of  politics,  or  Story  a  new 
treatise  elucidating  some  difficult  department  of  law, 
he  expended  all  his  energies  in  the  attempt  to  set 
forth  its  merits.  He  was  more  vain,  if  the  expression 
may  be  allowed,  of  the  works  of  his  friends  than 
of  his  own.  He  wished  that  everything  they  wrote 
should  be  properly  appreciated,  and  that  the  public 
opinion  should  be  in  accord  with  his  own.  It  is,^ 
impossible  to  compute  the  amount  of  labor  he  con- 
sumed in  aiding  his  literary  and  legal  brethren  when 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  225 

any  one  of  them  was  engaged  in  an  enterprise  which 
required  toilsome  research.  His  learning  and  his 
time  were  always  at  their  disposal,  and  his  glory  in 
their  glory  became  occasionally  almost  vain-glorious. 
Now  vanity,  when  it  becomes  a  vice,  is  ever  allied  to 
envy,  and  of  envy  Sumner  had  not  a  particle  in  his 
nature.  His  cordial  recognition  of  the  merits  of  others 
exceeded  in  warmth  any  feeling  he  might  have  of  his 
own  deservings.  Where  literature  was  concerned,  he 
was  from  the  first  superior  to  all  political  and  social 
prejudices.  There  was  a  period,  some  forty  years  ago, 
when  a  distinguished  historian,  of  strong  Democratic 
principles,  was  personally  the  most  unpopular  man  in 
Boston,  where  he  held  an  important  political  office. 
"  Why,"   a  cultivated  gentleman  said  to  me  at  this 

time,  "  do  you  young  men  of  the Lyceum  invite 

him  to  lecture  before  you  ?  "  "  We  invited  him  be- 
cause, being  an  eminent  man  of  letters,  we  supposed 
we  should  attract  to  our  course  of  lectures  persons  of 
culture  like  yourself."  "  Then  you  have  made  a  great 
mistake.  He  is  a  person  tolerated  by  nobody  —  except 
by  Charles  Sumner  and  William  H.  Prescott,  who  tol- 
erate everybody."  This  was  really  a  tribute  to  Sum- 
ner's magnanimity,  as  he  had  then  little  sympathy 
with  the  political  views  of  the  man  whom  Boston 
society,  through  one  of  its  mouthpieces,  thus  inexor- 
ably proscribed.  The  linking  of  his  name  with  that 
of  Prescott,  the  most  genial  and  amiable  of  human 
beings,  was  also  honorable  to  him. 

Not   many  years  after  this,  Sumner  himself  came 
15 


226  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

under  the  ban  of  "  good  society."  The  occasion  was 
a  debate  at  a  meeting  of  the  Boston  Prison  Discipline 
Society  (1847).  He  had  done  or  said  before  this 
some  things  which  offended  the  inner  circles  of  Bos- 
ton society,  but  in  setting  forth  his  views  on  prison 
discipline,  he  in  the  heat  of  debate  made  some  need- 
lessly cutting  remarks  on  persons  of  the  first  respect- 
ability in  the  city,  and  he  was  thenceforth  voted  by 
them  to  be  "  vulgar."  His  offences  against  what  was 
considered  social  and  political  decorum  went  on 
increasing  year  after  year,  and  the  houses  where  he 
had  before  been  a  welcome  visitor  closed  their  doors 
to  him  one  after  the  other.  It  is  curious  that  this 
fashionable  ostracism  continued  after  he  had  made 
himself  a  great  reputation  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States,  and  held  the  position  of  chairman  of  the  Sen- 
ate Committee  on  Foreign  Relations.  He  was  a  polit* 
ical  force  of  the  first  rank,  in  the  opinion  of  ambassa- 
dors of  foreign  states,  when  numbers  of  the  commercial 
and  manufacturing  aristocracy  of  his  native  city  rated 
and  berated  him  as  a  vulgar  fanatic.  Mr.  Samuel 
Hooper — a  Boston  merchant,  who  represented  Boston 
in  the  national  House  of  Representatives  for  many 
years,  before,  during,  and  after  the  war  of  the  Rebel- 
lion, and  who  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Sumner  —  told 
me  that  one  of  his  solid  mercantile  friends  once  asked 
him  how  he  managed  to  get  along  with  "  that  fellow 
Sumner." 

"  Oh,  very  well,"  was  the  reply.     "  I  meet  him  very 
often.     He  appears  to  be  invited  to  every  party  given 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  227 

in  "Washington.  You  can't  go  anywhere  without 
meeting  him." 

"  But  you  don't  say  he  is  considered  a  gentleman  ? 
You  don't  say  that  he  is  a  man  that  one  would  ask, 
now,  to  dine  at  your  table  or  mine  ?  " 

"  No,"  Mr.  Hooper  rejoined,  with  that  dry,  delicious, 
and  quietly  malicious  humor  which  characterized  him, 
"  I  don't  think  that  it  would  become  you  to  invite  him 
to  your  house.  But  society  in  Wasliington  is  mixed 
up  of  heterogeneous  elements  such  as  we  never  find 
in  Boston.  There  is,  you  know,  a  lot  of  ambassadors 
from  the  various  countries  of  Europe,  —  dukes,  earls, 
barons,  knights,  and  other  persons  with  this  or  that 
title  prefixed  to  their  names, —  and  they  are  compelled, 
for  political  reasons,  to  invite  all  kinds  of  persons  to 
their  dinners.  Sumner  seems  to  be  their  favorite 
guest ;  but  I  would  not,  of  course,  advise  you  to  invite 
him  to  dinner.  In  Boston  we  are  naturally  more  cau- 
tious in  selecting  the  persons  who  are  to  eat  our 
meats  and  drink  our  wines.  In  "Washington  we  have 
to  be  less  discriminating." 

And  the  good  Boston  merchant  departed,  fully  as- 
sured that  his  friend  Hooper  entirely  agreed  with  him 
as  to  the  propriety  of  excluding  such  a  fanatic  as  Sum- 
ner from  the  inner  sanctuary  of  his  own  unpolluted 
dwelling.  And  yet  at  this  very  time  Sumner  was  rec- 
ognized at  the  seat  of  government  as  one  of  the  pow- 
ers to  be  consulted  in  the  settlement  of  matters  which 
intimately  affected  the  prosperity  of  tlie  commerce  of 
Boston,  in  common  with  that  of  the  whole  commerce 
of  the  country. 


228  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

In  questions  relating  to  domestic  affairs,  Sumner 
was  almost  always  in  collision  with  his  Democratic 
opponents,  and  often  with  his  Republican  friends.  In 
foreign  affairs,  however,  he  generally  carried  with  him 
both  the  Democratic  and  the  Republican  members  of 
his  special  committee  of  the  Senate.  This  was  owing 
primarily  to  his  exceptional  knowledge  of  international 
law,  the  study  of  which  had  occupied  his  attention  from 
the  time  he  entered  the  Law  School  at  Cambridge ; 
but  this  advantage  was  supplemented  by  his  immense 
correspondence  with  the  leaders  of  European  opinion. 
Many  of  these  leaders  were  occupants  of  offices  under 
their  respective  governments ;  others  were  professors 
of  international  law  in  the  universities  of  England, 
France,  and  Germany;  wherever,  indeed,  there  was 
a  man  competent  to  deliver  a  wise  opinion  on  the  law 
of  nations,  whether  in  office  or  out  of  it,  Sumner  con- 
trived that  a  private  letter  from  that  person  addressed 
to  himself  should  be  an  element  which  should  prop- 
erly be  considered  in  the  judgment  of  the  Senate 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  as  to  the  immediate 
question  before  them.  It  is  probable  that  Mr.  Fierce, 
in  the  forth-coming  volumes  of  his  "  Life  of  Sumner," 
will  demonstrate  how  Lord  Palmerston  was  forced 
to  abandon  his  early  insolent  pretensions  regarding 
"  belligerency"  by  the  knowledge  which  Sumner  pos- 
sessed, through  his  private  correspondence,  that  some 
eminent  member  of  the  House  of  Commons  would  rise 
on  some  occasion,  and  put  a  question  to  the  first  Lord 
of  the  Treasury  which  it  would  be  awkward  for  him 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  229 

to  answer.  That  question  would  be  asked,  because 
Sumner  had  suggested  it  to  one  of  his  numerous 
correspondents  who  were  members  of  the  House. 
Indeed,  it  may  be  confidently  asserted  that  there  was 
a  series  of  communications  between  influential  mem- 
bers of  the  English  House  of  Commons  and  House  of 
Lords,  addressed  (privately,  of  course)  to  Mr.  Sum- 
ner, the  chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  For- 
eign Relations,  which  seriously  influenced  the  action 
of  the  governments  of  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain.  The  power  that  Sumner  obtained  was  due 
to  his  exact  information  regarding  the  real  public 
opinion  underlying  all  the  votes  of  Parliament  and  all 
the  judgments  of  the  press.  This  power  he  exercised 
with  a  kind  of  inexorable  and  implacable  persistence, 
knowing  that  if  his  demands  were  resisted,  England 
would  be  placed  in  the  position  of  a  power  of  the  second 
rank  in  Europe.  "  That,"  he  once  told  me,  "  is  my 
object.  If  England  should  abandon  her  proud  pre- 
eminence among  the  governments  of  Europe  as  the 
special  representative  of  civil  and  religious  liberty,  if 
she  should,  in  her  relations  to  our  country,  dare  to 
violate  the  recognized  principles  of  international  law, 
she  must  be  inevitably  reduced  to  the  ignominious 
position  of  a  power  of  the  second  class.  My  speech, 
which  has  so  often  been  laughed  at,  and  which  every 
English  journal  denounces,  —  though  not  one  of  the 
newspapers  has  ever  condescended  to  print  it  in  full, 
—  is  really  pondered  by  the  shrewd  ministers  and 
diplomatists  of  other  European  governments.     They 


230  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

know  that  until  the  questions  I  have  mooted  have 
been  settled,  England  cannot  be  considered  a  power 
of  the  first  rank,  because  she  has  not  settled  her  debt 
of  justice  to  us.  We  have  shown  a  capacity  of  impro- 
vising armies  and  navies  which  naturally  excites  sur- 
prise abroad ;  and  so  long  as  Great  Britain  insolently 
denies  our  right  to  have  the  differences  between  us 
adjusted  by  fair  arbitration,  she  has  a  terrible  enemy 
on  her  flank  should  she  choose  to  indulge  in  the 
luxury   of  war." 

The  relations  between  Mr.  Seward  and  Sumner 
during  the  administration  of  Andrew  Johnson  were 
of  a  singular  kind,  and  explain  the  difficulties  he 
afterward  unsuccessfully  encountered  in  his  dealings 
with  Mr.  Fish  during  the  administration  of  President 
Grant.  Seward  and  Sumner  were  old  political  and 
personal  friends,  and  understood  each  other  perfectly 
when  they  came  into  political  hostility.  They  were 
generally  in  accord  as  to  the  foreign  policy  of  the 
government  at  the  time  they  were  most  vehemently  at 
variance  on  the  domestic  question  of  reconstruction. 
It  was  pleasant  to  listen  to  Sumner  as  he  narrated 
any  one  of  his  many  interviews  with  the  Secretary  of 
State.  Thus,  he  would  say :  "  As  soon  as  I  heard  of 
the  position  of  Seward  on  this  question,  I  hurried  to 
his  house  to  expostulate  with  him.  Once  together  in 
liis  private  room  I  immediately  began  :  '  Mr.  Seward, 
you  have  lost  the  great  opportunity  of  your  life  to  be 
ranked  among  the  most  illustrious  of  our  statesmen. 
You  have  done  much  more.     You  have  forfeited  by 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  231 

this  act  a  largo  part  of  your  reputation  among  re- 
formers and  philanthropists,  which  you  had  justly 
acquired  by  your  efforts  in  the  cause  of  justice  and 
freedom.  This  last  offence  is  inexpiable,  unless  it  be 
at  once  repented  of  and  disclaimed.  History  will 
hold  you  up  as  one  of  those  men  who  met  a  great 
occasion,  on  which  the  happiness  and  welfare  of  op- 
pressed millions  depended,  by  a  weak  compliance 
with  the  intrigues,  the  false  statements,  and  the 
sopliistical  logic  of  their  oppressors.  I  beg  you  to 
pause  in  time.'  And  then,"  Sumner  would  add,  with 
exquisite  na'ivetS,  "  Seward  would  get  mad  [as  what 
man  would  not  ?] ,  and  denounce  me  and  my  political 
friends  as  fools  and  fanatics  ;  and,  you  know,  he  was 
very  liberal  of  those  profane  adjectives  which  men  in 
excitement  apply  to  fools  and  fanatics.  And  so  we 
would  go  on  for  perhaps  half  an  hour  in  the  fiercest 
contention,  until  our  mutual  noble  rage  was  ex- 
hausted. Then  Seward,  recovering  his  equanimity, 
would  say, '  Sumner,  let  us  leave  this  matter,  where 
we  cannot  agree,  and  proceed'to  foreign  affairs,  where, 
I  think,  we  have  no  radical  cause  of  difference.  Now 
I  am  placed,  as  Secretary  of  State,  in  a  peculiarly  em- 
barrassing position  as  to  foreign  ambassadors.  While 
this  question  of  belligerency  is  pending  between  our 
government  and  that  of  Great  Britain  we  cannot  con- 
sider any  claims  of  other  governments,  however  just 
they  may  be.  I  wish  you  would  allow  me  to  say,  if 
Mr. ,  representing ,  and  Baron ,  repre- 
senting   ,  or  any  other  of  the  European  ministers, 


232  RECOLLECTIONS  OP 

call  upon  me  for  redress,  that  the  trouble  is  not  in 
my  department,  but  in  the  Senate  Committee  on  For- 
eign Relations.  As  you  are  the  chairman  of  that 
committee,  and  all  the  claims  are  in  your  possession, 
it  may  expose  you  to  some  misrepresentation,  perhaps 
some  obloquy ;  but  I  think  it  would  be  more  proper 
that  you  should  bear  the  burden  than  I.  Of  course, 
we  cannot  consider  any  claim  from  any  quarter  until 
Great  Britain  has  receded  from  her  first  pretension.' 
And  so  we  would  have  another  half -hour's  talk,  per- 
fectly friendly  on  both  sides,  in  which  it  was  agreed 
that  I  should  be  referred  to  as  the  obnoxious  person 
who  obstructed  the  consideration  of  any  claims,  until 
Great  Britain  had  acknowledged  the  principle  on 
which  all  should  be  settled.  When  the  ambassadors 
came  to  me,  I  always  told  them  that  a  few  minutes' 
conversation  with  the  British  minister  would  inform 
them  of  the  real  difficulty  in  the  case.  So,  you  see, 
though  Seward  and  I  were  at  swords'  points  on  many 
questions,  we  got  along  together  very  well  in  respect 
to  matters  of  foreign  policy.  We  never  really  quar- 
relled, though  we  sometimes  violently  disagreed." 

One  can  easily  understand  why  "  a  new  hand "  in 
the  office  of  Secretary  of  State,  like  Mr.  Fish,  who 
had  little  of  Mr.  Seward's  flexibility,  could  not  con- 
trive to  fall  into  agreeable  relations  with  the  chair- 
man of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations, 
and  why  President  Grant  <jame  positively  to  hate  him. 
Sumner  had  become  so  accustomed  to  dominate  in 
matters  of  state,  was  so  blunt  and  belligerent  in  his 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  238 

conversations  with  Lincoln  and  Seward,  that  he  could 
hardly  understand  why  his  outspoken  advice  should 
not  be  received  by  a  new  administration  as  it  had 
been  received  by  the  old.  Seward's  appreciation  of 
his  mastery  of  foreign  affairs,  which  was  not  only  due 
to  Sumner's  knowledge  of  international  law,  but  to 
his  extensive  correspondence  with  the  leaders  of  Eng- 
lish and  European  opinion  on  every  disputed  question 
which  came  up  during  and  after  the  war,  prevented 
him  from  ever  getting  into  any  quarrel  with  Sumner 
which  would  dissolve  their  personal  friendship.  Even 
after,  as  I  have  said,  he  had  exchanged  epithets  with 
Sumner  which  would  have  justified,  to  the  Southern 
mind,  an  exchange  of   pistol-bullets,  he   would  say, 

"  Now,  I  desire  to  see  your  last  letters  from , 

from   Lord ,  from   the   Duke  of ,  and  any 

other  correspondents  of  yours  in  Europe.  The  des- 
patch I  am  going  to  write  requires  all  the  interior 
information  I  can  possibly  obtain  regarding  the  real 
feelings  and  intentions  of  the  men  who  represent 
public  opinion  abroad."  Mr.  Seward  felt  that  it 
would  be  folly  to  quarrel  with  a  senator  who  not  only 
had  the  principles  of  international  law  in  his  brain, 
but  had  the  opinions  of  its  latest  expositors  in  his 
pocket.  Mr.  Lincoln,  again,  so  clearly  discerned  the 
impolicy  of  making  an  enemy  of  the  formidable  Mas- 
sachusetts Senator,  who  so  specially  represented  the 
moral  sentiment  of  the  Northern  people,  that  he  bore 
with  much  magnanimity  Sumner's  somewhat  rude 
intrusions  of  advice  as  to  what  should  be  the  Presi- 


234  KECOLLECTIONS  OF 

dent's  policy.  A  few  days  before  Lincoln's  second  in- 
auguration as  President,  Sumner  called  at  the  White 
House,  and  told  him  that  he  was  determined  to  de- 
feat in  the  Senate  his  favorite  measure  regarding 
Louisiana,  because  it  embodied  a  vicious  principle, 
which  would  be  quoted  as  a  precedent  when  any  large 
scheme  of  reconstruction,  applying  to  all  the  rebel 
States,  might  be  brought  forward.  Lincoln  blandly 
listened  to  the  Senator's  remonstrances,  and  replied  : 
"  Mr.  Sunmer,  I  am  not  convinced  by  your  arguments ; 
and  as  to  your  threat  of  defeating  the  bill,  I  can  tell 
you  it  is  impossible,  for  I  know  that  a  clear  majority 
of  the  Senate  is  in  its  favor.'*  "  But  I  tell  you,  Mr. 
President,"  answered  Sumner,  "  it  shall  and  will  be 
defeated."  "  Try  it,"  was  the  quiet  retort.  Sumner 
did  try  it.  He  appeared  on  the  last  night  of  the  ses- 
sion of  Congress  with  a  small  law  library,  partly  on 
his  desk,  and  partly  piled  up  on  either  side  of  it. 
The  bill  was  introduced,  and  it  was  supposed  that  it 
would  be  immediately  passed.  Sumner,  however,  had 
the  floor,  and  began  to  speak.  After  he  had  spoken 
an  hour  or  two,  it  occurred  to  Senator  Wade,  of  Ohio, 
that  it  would  be  well  to  ask  Sumner  —  as  the  session 
of  Congress  would  soon  expire,  and  as  there  was 
much  necessary  business  still  remaining  to  be  done  — 
how  long  the  Senator  from  Massachusetts  intended  to 
occupy  the  attention  of  the  Senate.  Sumner  replied, 
in  his  most  courteous  tones,  that  he  feared  he  could 
not  get  through  his  argument  in  less  than  six  hours ; 
the  Senator  from  Ohio  must  see,  from  tlie  books  he 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  236 

had  about  him,  every  one  of  which  contained  matter 
bearing  on  the  question  of  debate,  and  from  which  he 
proposed  to  make  copious  extracts,  that  his  speech 
must  be  of  unusual  length,  and  that  he  could  not 
promise  that  it  would  come  to  a  close  before  the  le- 
gal session  of  Congress  came  to  an  end.  Wade,  who 
had  in  his  charge  what  was,  in  effect,  Lincoln's  bill, 
was  on  this  announcement  compelled  to  abandon  it. 
Sumner  thus  managed  to  have  the  whole  great  sub- 
ject of  reconstruction  postponed  to  the  period  when  it 
could  be  discussed  in  all  its  larger  relations  to  the 
welfare  of  both  sections  of  the  country. 

It  is  very  likely  that  this  incident,  as  Sumner  told  it 
to  me,  may  be  inaccurate  in  details.  If  so,  the  fault  is 
in  my  memory,  not  in  his  long  narrative.  But  his  ob- 
ject in  telling  it  was  to  illustrate  a  beautiful  quality  of 
Lincoln's  character.  "  I  thought,"  he  said,  "  that  the 
President  would  consider  my  opposition  as  a  personal 
affront.  Instead  of  that,  you  may  suppose  my  sur- 
prise when  he  sent  me  a  note  on  the  next  day,  asking  me 
to  accompany  Mrs.  Lincoln,  in  his  carriage,  to  the  cere- 
monies of  the  inauguration,  and  also  to  accompany  her 
to  the  inauguration  ball  in  the  evening.  As  to  the  ball, 
you  may  imagine  the  kind  of  wonder  which  was  excited 
when,  with  Mrs.  Lincoln  on  my  arm,  I  made  my  way 
through  the  thick  throng  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  pres- 
ent, and  placed  her  in  her  selected  seat.  The  thing 
was  nothing  in  itself ;  but  it  still,  I  thought,  read  a  les- 
son to  shrewd  politicians,  when  they  had  to  undertake 
the  task  of  pleasing  such  a  man  as  Abraham  Lincoln." 


236  KECOLLECTIONS  Or 

It  is  evident  that  Sumner's  way  of  rushing  in  upon 
Lincoln  and  Seward  with  his  vehement  advice  was  not 
adapted  to  the  mental  and  moral  constitution  of  Grant 
and  Fish.  Perhaps  they  would  not  concede  the  value 
of  the  information  he  was  able  to  give,  while  they  re- 
sented the  strenuousness,  amounting  almost  to  physi- 
cal force,  with  which  he  urged  his  opinions  on  their 
attention.  The  quarrel  which  ensued  came  in  the  nat- 
ural order  of  things. 

Much  has  been  said  about  Sumner's  lack  of  humor- 
ous perception;  but  this  defect  has  been  somewhat 
overstated.  There  was,  it  must  be  admitted,  a  certain 
tendency  in  his  eloquence  to  grandiloquence,  —  a  ten- 
dency which  was  in  his  mind  as  well  as  in  his  words. 
Coleridge,  in  the  admirable  criticism  on  his  friend 
Wordsworth,  in  the  "Biographia  Literaria,"  states  that 
the  great  poet  sometimes  brings  in  thoughts  and  images 
too  great  for  the  subject  they  illustrate ;  and  he  calls 
this  "  mental  bombast,"  as  distinguished  from  verbal. 
It  is  a  vice  of  style  into  which  serious  minds  are  apt  to 
slide,  when  they  are  deficient  in  that  sense  of  humor 
which  would  instinctively  correct  or  prevent  it.  Sum- 
ner undoubtedly  was  not  without  his  full  share  of  this 
defect.  Still,  in  my  conversations  with  him  I  often 
found  him  genially  open  to  impressions  of  the  humor- 
ous"'side  of  the  questions  he  commonly  debated  with 
passionate  fervor.  At  the  time  when  he  was  among 
the  most  strenuous  of  those  Republicans  who  opposed 
the  renomination  of  Grant  for  the  Presidency,  I  called 
upon  him  one  evening  at  his  rooms  in  Boston.     He 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  237 

immediately  began  to  declaim  against  the  nomination 
of  Grant  as  a  "  nomination  not  fit  to  be  made  "  for  a 
second  term.  In  a  pause,  perhaps  of  half  a  minute, 
when  his  vehemence  was  somewhat  exhausted,  and  he 
stopped  to  gather  breath  for  a  new  assault,  I  took  the 
opportunity  to  remark  that  what  he  had  just  said  re- 
minded me  of  something  that  I  had  read  in  a  news- 
paper the  day  before.  "  What  was  it  ? "  he  eagerly 
asked.  "  Oh,  nothing  but  this,  —  a  coincidence  of  opin- 
ion between  your  friend  B.  and  your  friend  Agassiz." 
"  B.  and  Agassiz !  how  could  they  have  anything  in 
common  ?  What  has  Agassiz  to  do  with  the  next  Re- 
publican nomination  for  the  Presidency  ?  "  "  Well,"  I 
replied, "  I  know  nothing  about  the  matter  but  what  the 
newspaper  states.  There  is  an  absurd  report  abroad 
that  Agassiz,  on  geological  grounds,  predicts  that  the 
world  will  be  smashed  to  pieces  on  October  22.  The 
news  was  communicated  to  your  friend  B.  while  he 
was  absorbed  in  arranging  multitudinous  rows  of  fig- 
ures demonstrating  that  Grant  could  not  be  re-elected, 
and  he  only  paused  a  moment  in  his  calculations 
to  exclaim,  '  Good  !  Anything  to  beat  Grant ! ' "  At 
this  Sumner  absolutely  roared  with  laughter,  and  I 
feared  he  would  drop  from  his  chair,  so  convulsed  was 
he  with  the  sudden  turn  given  to  his  serious  thinking. 
I  then  ventured  to  add  that  he  must,  of  course,  know 
the  motto  which  was  suggested  for  Mr.  Greeley,  the 
candidate  of  the  Democrats  and  the  discontented  Re- 
publicans. "  No,"  he  said,  recovering  his  accustomed 
earnestness ; "  what  is  it  ?  "  "  Simply  this :  '  If  any  man 


238  KECOLLECTIONS  OF 

attempts  to  tear  down  the  American  flag,  bail  him  on 
the  spot ! ' "  And  then  he  laughed  more  uproariously 
than  before.  Stale  as  the  jokes  were,  he  had  never 
heard  of  them ;  but  he  must  have  had  some  sense  of 
humor  to  appreciate  their  point  when  introduced,  as 
they  were,  in  the  height  of  his  moral  passion  against 
what  he  thought  the  sins  of  Grant's  administration. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  were  occasions  when  he 
seemed  singularly  obtuse  to  the  most  exquisite  exam- 
ples of  humor.  In  1853  was  published  a  book  which 
ranks  with  the  most  fascinating  of  all  modern  biogra- 
phies, —  the  "  Life  of  Benjamin  Robert  Haydon,  His- 
torical Painter,  from  his  Autobiography  and  Journals," 
edited  and  compiled  by  Tom  Taylor.  It  is  one  of  the 
mysteries  of  what  is  called  literary  success  that  this 
work  should  not  have  obtained  a  circulation  almost 
equal  to  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin."  Speaking  only  as  one 
reader,  I  can  say  that  at  the  time  they  were  published 
I  happened  to  take  up  each  work  early  in  the  evening 
of  one  day,  and  it  was  very  late  in  the  morning  of  the 
next  that  I  went  to  bed.  In  both  cases  sleep  was  im- 
possible until  the  biography  and  the  novel  came  to  an 
end.  In  Haydon 's  autobiography,  full  as  it  is  of 
interesting  matter,  there  is  no  description  more  deli- 
ciously  humorous  than  his  account  of  a  dinner  which 
he  gave  in  December,  1817,  for  the  purpose  of  intro- 
ducing Keats  to  Wordsworth,  with  Charles  Lamb  as  one 
of  the  party.  "  Lamb,"  he  says,  "  soon  got  delight- 
fully merry.  He  made  a  speech,  and  voted  me  absent, 
and  made  them  drink  my  health."    Then  he  turned 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  239 

to  Wordsworth,  and  said,  "  Now,  you  old  Lake  Poet, 
you  rascally  poet,  why  do  you  call  Voltaire  dull  ? " 
After  the  dinner  came  tea,  and  then  a  stranger  came 
in,  who,  like  Wordsworth,  was  a  comptroller  of  stamps, 
and  had  a  vague  notion  that  his  brother  comptroller 
was  an  eminent  poet.  As  Lamb  was  dozing  by  the 
fire,  the  comptroller,  being  in  literary  company,  nat- 
urally desired  to  show  himself  competent  to  appreciate 
poets,  and  turning  to  Wordsworth,  solemnly  asked, 
"  Don't  you  think,  sir,  Milton  was  a  great  genius  ? " 
The  scene  that  ensued  is  fully  described  by  Haydon  ; 
but  the  special  point  of  it  is  that  Lamb  took  up  a  can- 
dle, and  walking  up  to  the  prosaic  comptroller,  asked, 
with  great  solemnity,  "  Sir,  will  you  allow  me  to  look 
at  your  phrenological  development  ?  "  The  result  of 
the  whole  series  of  embarrassments  arising  from 
Lamb's  reiterated  demand  to  have  "  another  look  at 
that  gentleman's  organs  "  was  that  Haydon  and  Keats, 
nearly  bursting  with  suppressed  laughter,  forced  him 
into  the  adjoining  painting-room;  and  while  Words- 
worth and  others  of  the  company  were  trying  to  pacify 
the  enraged  functionary.  Lamb,  struggling  with  his 
captors  in  the  painting-room,  was  heard  at  intervals 
exclaiming,  "  Who  is  that  fellow  ?  Allow  me  to  see  his 
organs  once  more."  It  would  appear  to  be  impossible 
that  any  person  who  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  pecul- 
iar humor  of  Charles  Lamb  should  not  perceive  that  this 
incident  was  a  delightful  practical  specimen  of  it ;  yet 
Sumner,  referring  to  Haydon's  detailed  narrative  of 
the  occurrence, remarked  to  me :  "I  am  sorry  that  such 


240  RECOLLECTIONS  OF 

a  story  as  that  should  have  been  published.  We  who 
love  and  appreciate  Charles  Lamb  must  be  pained  at 
seeing  him  represented  in  such  a  disreputable  light  as 
insulting  the  guest  of  his  host  in  so  unjustifiable  a 
manner.  He  must  have  taken  too  much  wine  at  din- 
ner, or  he  could  never  have  been  guilty  of  such  an 
indecorum."  Yet  Sumner,  while  he  made  this  re- 
mark, would  have  felt  offended  if  you  had  questioned 
his  capacity  to  enjoy  the  humor  of  Lamb.  It  was 
plain,  from  all  the  circumstances  narrated  at  the  din- 
ner, that  Lamb  was  not  intoxicated  at  all.  His  con- 
duct was  a  humorous  protest  against  the  commonplace 
comptroller  of  stamps,  who  had  asked,  "  Don't  you 
think  that  Milton  was  a  great  poet  ?  "  Phrenology  was 
then  a  theory  new  in  Great  Britain,  and  Lamb's  demand 
to  explore  the  "  bumps  "  of  the  man  who  had  intruded 
himself  into  literary  and  artistic  society  without  the 
remotest  notion  of  what  was  indisputably  established 
among  them  as  settled  questions,  ridiculous  to  doubt, 
was  but  a  practical,  a  characteristic,  outbreak  of  his 
peculiar  humor.    Yet  Sumner  could  not  see  it. 

But  those  who  knew  Sumner  most  intimately  must 
heartily  recognize  those  commanding  traits  of  charac- 
ter which  made  his  foibles  and  deficiencies  appear  of 
small  account  in  their  general  judgment  of  the  man. 
He  was  a  grand  specimen  of  physical,  intellectual,  and 
moral  manhood,  ready  to  do  and  to  suffer  anything  in 
the  cause  of  what  he  considered  true,  just,  honorable, 
and  humane.  Far  from  being  confined  to  the  question 
of  slavery,  which  was  his  special  task,  he,  in  the  spirit 


CHARLES  SUMNER,  241 

of  Bacon,  proudly  took  all  benevolent  and  intelligent 
legislation  "  for  his  province  ;  "  and  he  was  as  sound 
on  financial  questions  as  on  those  questions  which 
made  him  the  special  champion  of  liberty  and  justice. 
Above  all,  he  was  intrepid,  and  can  hardly  be  said  to 
have  ever  felt  the  sensation  of  fear  whenever  he  had  a 
noble  cause  to  advocate  or  an  absurd  opinion  to  con- 
trovert. On  many  occasions  —  indeed,  on  all  promi- 
nent occasions  of  his  career  as  a  statesman  —  he  was 
called  upon  to  exhibit  what  is  called  "  backbone  ; "  and 
the  bravery  in  his  will  and  in  his  heart  always  an- 
swered to  that  which  was  in  his  brain. 

Sumner,  in  common  with  all  thoughtful  and  culti- 
vated persons  who  speak  the  English  tongue,  had  a  just 
admiration  for  the  genius  and  character  of  Edmund 
Burke.  He  sympathized  deeply  with  the  philanthropic 
spirit  which  animated  the  works  of  that  illustrious 
philosophical  statesman,  even  when  he  differed  from 
his  opinions.  Probably  the  compliment  he  most  prized 
was  that  paid  to  him  by  the  eldest  son  of  Earl  Fitz- 
william,  as  he  and  Lord  Milton  were  looking  at  the 
portrait  of  Burke  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  in  a  gallery 
of  paintings  in  Wentworth  House.  "  It  seems  to  me, 
Mr.  Sumner, "  said  Lord  Milton,  "  that  in  this  posi- 
tion, and  in  this  light,  there  is  a  marked  resemblance 
between  your  countenance  and  that  of  Burke." 

Sumner  spent  the  leisure  hours  of  the  last  years 
of  his  life  in  carefully  correcting  his  orations  and 
speeches.  They  were  published  in  successive  volumes, 
each  receiving  the  last  touch  of  the  author's  pen,  with 

16 


242  BECOLLECTIONS  OF 

a  special  solicitude  that  every  quotation  should  be  ver 
ified.  He  hoped  that  his  spoken  words  would  become 
a  part  of  American  literature,  as  the  speeches  of  Burke 
were  indisputably  an  essential  portion  of  English  liter^ 
ature,  —  "  the  third  Englishman,"  as  Choate  was  wont 
to  call  him.  He  did  not,  of  course,  indulge  in  the 
pleasing  conceit  that  his  speeches  were  equal  to 
Burke's  ;  but  he  felt  that  in  preparing  and  delivering 
them,  he  had  some  claim  to  participate  in  the  exulta- 
tion of  soul  with  which  Burke  welcomed,  on  a  memo- 
rable occasion,  the  glorious  unpopularity  which  resulted 
from  the  diif erence  between  himself  and  his  Bristol  con- 
stituents on  certain  questions  where  justice  and  human- 
ity were  concerned.  After  declaring  with  an  honest 
pride  that  no  charge  had  been  made  against  him  of 
venality  or  neglect  of  duty,  he  proudly  adds  :  "  It  is  not 
alleged  that  to  gratify  any  anger  or  revenge  of  my 
own  or  of  my  party,  I  have  had  a  share  in  wronging  or 
oppressing  any  description  of  men,  or  any  one  man  in 
any  description.  No !  The  charges  against  me  are  all 
of  one  kind :  that  I  have  pushed  the  general  princi- 
ples of  justice  and  benevolence  too  far,  —  further  than 
a  cautious  policy  would  warrant,  and  further  than  the 
opinions  of  many  would  go  along  with  me.  In  every 
accident  which  may  happen  through  life,  in  pain,  in 
sorrow,  in  depression,  and  distress,  I  will  call  to  mind 
this  accusation ;  and  be  comforted."  Burke,  in  revis- 
ing his  speech,  evidently  put  a  semicolon  rather  than  a 
mere  comma  after  the  word  "  accusation,"  in  order  to 
give  emphasis  to  the  pause  which  naturally  followed, 


CHARLES  SUMNER.  243 

as  he  spoke,  before  he  drew  "  comfort "  from  the 
"  accusation."  This  simple,  dispassionate  statement 
stands  now  as  one  of  the  grandest  passages  in  English 
eloquence.  The  great  master  of  that  eloquence  had 
been  constantly  libelled,  caricatured,  misapprehended, 
and  denounced  for  those  virtues  which  most  endear 
him  to  that  posterity  to  which  he  confidently  appealed ; 
and  in  this  sentence  he  lifted  obloquy  into  a  spiritual 
region  of  the  soul,  where  it  became  a  crown  of  glory,  — 
a  supreme  source  of  moral  self-satisfaction  beyond  that 
which  any  selfish  statesman  can  feel  in  the  moment 
when  his  ambition  is  gratified  to  the  utmost  by  reach- 
ing that  height  of  power  to  which  his  energies  may 
have  been  unscrupulously  directed.  Sumner,  also, 
had  the  noble  consolation  and  comfort  which  Burke 
experienced  when  he  uttered  those  immortal  words. 
The  charges  against  Mm  were  that  he,  too,  had  pushed 
the  principles  of  justice  and  benevolence  further  than 
a  cautious  policy  would  warrant ;  but  fortunately  he 
lived  long  enough  to  witness  that  the  irresistible  tide 
of  events  forced  his  party  to  admit,  as  politic,  measures 
which  he  had  urged  on  the  ground  of  principle,  and  to 
adopt  his  seemingly  abstract  maxims  of  justice  and 
benevolence  as  the  most  necessary  and  efficient  of 
political  expedients. 


GEORGE   TICKN0R.1 

It  was  the  good  fortune  of  George  Ticknor  that  he 
could  reside  in  no  place,  even  for  a  few  weeks,  without 
enjoying  the  advantages  of  the  best  society  in  it. 
Accordingly  his  letters  and  journals  are  crammed 
with  records  of  his  interviews  with  magnates  and 
celebrities.  The  ordinary  republican,  as  he  reads  the 
work,  is  dazzled  by  the  procession  of  kings,  princes, 
grand-dukes,  dukes,  earls,  and  counts,  which  passes 
before  his  astonished  eyes ;  and  the  man  of  letters,  or 
the  man  of  science,  is  no  less  surprised  at  the  throng 
of  persons,  associated  in  his  mind  with  the  great  in- 
tellectual achievements  of  the  first  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  with  whom  Mr.  Ticknor  was  on  terms 
of  intimacy. 

The  preparation  of  this  Memoir  was  confided  to 
Mr.  George  S.  Hillard,  in  every  respect  qualified  to 
perform  such  a  labor  of  love  ;  but  after  the  conclusion 
of  the  tenth  chapter  he  was  prostrated  by  sudden 
illness,  and  the  duty  of  completing  it  was  undertaken 
by  Mrs.  Ticknor  and  her  eldest  daughter,  who  have 
executed  the  task  with  general  good  taste  and  judg- 

^  Life,  Journals,  and  Letters  of  George  Ticknor.  Boston  :  James 
R.  Osgood  &  Co.    1876.    2  vols.  8vo.  pp.  624,  533. 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  245 

ment,  and  have  refrained  almost  too  carefully  from 
allowing  affection  to  urge  them  into  any  undue  praise 
of  the  husband  and  father,  whose  worth,  talents,  and 
learning  they  commemorate. 

Mr.  Ticknor  was  fortunate  in  his  parentage,  as  in 
everything  else.  Both  his  father  and  mother  were 
educated  persons,  and  both  had  been  engaged  in  the 
noble  profession  of  teaching.  His  father,  Elisha  Tick- 
nor, a  graduate  of  Dartmouth  College,  seems  to  have 
drifted  into  trade  only  because  failing  health  com- 
pelled him  to  relinquish  his  occupation  as  a  teacher ; 
and  in  trade  he  acquired  the  competence  which  ena- 
bled him  to  gratify  the  scholarly  ambitions  of  his 
darling  son. 

George  Ticknor  was  born  on  the  first  day  of  August, 
1791.  His  early  education  was  undertaken  by  his 
parents ;  he  was  sent  to  Dartmouth  College  in  1805, 
and  for  two  years  received  the  kind  of  instruction 
which  was  then  dispensed  to  ingenuous  youth  in  that 
institution  of  learning;  was,  by  his  own  confession, 
idle  there,  and  learned  little ;  but  in  1807,  on  his  return 
to  Boston,  was  put  by  his  father  under  the  tuition  of 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Gardiner,  with  whom  he  studied  for  three 
years,  obtaining  from  that  forcible  and  genial  scholar 
a  strong  taste  for  classical  learning  as  well  as  a  mod- 
erate proficiency  in  it.  He  then  studied  law  in  the 
office  of  William  Sullivan ;  in  1813  he  was  admitted 
to  the  bar,  and  was  so  successful  during  the  first  and 
only  year  in  which  he  practised  his  profession,  that 
his  fees  not  only  paid  the  rent  of  his  office,  but  also 


246  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

mounted  up  to  a  sum  suflEicient  to  discharge  the  mod- 
erate bill  of  his  office  boy.  In  spite  of  this  splendid 
triumph  of  professional  skill,  he  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  his  talents  and  tastes  did  not  lie  in  the 
direction  of  the  law.  His  intimacy  with  all  the  per- 
sons who  then  represented  the  best  intellectual  society 
of  Boston  and  its  vicinity,  —  Gardiner,  Buckminster, 
Wells,  Dexter,  Sullivan,  Prescott,  Parker,  Warren, 
John  Adams,  —  inflamed  him  with  a  desire  to  make 
liimself  a  scholar  and  a  cultivated  man  of  letters. 
Among  other  things,  he  was  interested  in  the  German 
language  and  literature.  In  order  to  gratify  this 
mental  whim,  he  had  to  borrow  a  German  grammar 
from  one  friend,  and  to  send  all  the  way  up  to  a 
town  in  New  Hampshire  for  a  German  dictionary 
which  was  the  precious  possession  of  another. 

He  decided,  after  scanning  the  means  of  getting  an 
education  worthy  of  the  name  in  the  United  States,  to 
go  to  Germany  in  search  of  it.  Before  venturing  on 
this  enterprise,  he  visited  Washington ;  dined  with 
President  Madison ;  stayed  some  days  with  Jefferson 
at  Monticello ;  saw  every  prominent  American  that  it 
was  desirable  to  see,  between  Boston  and  Richmond  ; 
and  returned  to  Massachusetts  fully  equipped  with 
such  letters  of  introduction  from  these  men  to  their 
friends  abroad,  as  would  enable  him  to  invade  Euro- 
pean society  with  an  adequate  social  force.  Indeed, 
in  reading  the  whole  body  of  his  diaries  and  corre- 
spondence, we  are  specially  impressed  by  the  potency 
acquired  by  a  personage  who  is  literally  a  man  of 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  247 

"letters,"  —  all  doors  flying  open  when  the  magical 
letters  are  produced. 

In  May,  1815,  when  young  Ticknor  arrived  in  Liv- 
erpool, he  learned  to  his  surprise,  and  somewhat  to 
his  dismay,  that  Napoleon  had  escaped  from  Elba  and 
was  established  in  Paris.  Bred  in  the  Federal  school 
of  American  politics,  he  expected  that  all  England 
would  feel  more  than  his  indignation  at  the  event; 
but  he  found  that  Roscoe  the  historian,  and  the  Whigs 
he  met  at  Roscoe's  table  were  opposed  to  the  war 
against  "  the  disturber  of  the  peace  of  Europe."  Call- 
ing on  his  way  to  London  on  Dr.  Parr,  he  records  two 
utterances  of  that  pompous  clerical  scholar  and  fierce 
Whig  politician.  "  Thirty  years  ago,  sir,"  said  the 
Doctor,  "  I  turned  on  my  heel  when  I  heard  you 
called  rebels,  and  I  was  always  glad  that  you  beat  us." 
As  to  the  return  of  Napoleon,  he  exclaimed  with  his 
peculiar  lisp,  "  Thus,  I  should  not  think  I  had  done 
my  duty,  if  I  went  to  bed  any  night  without  praying 
for  the  success  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte."  In  London 
Mr.  Ticknor  met  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  Campbell,  Gif- 
ford,  Byron,  and  Lady  Byron,  and  all  turned  to  him 
the  amiable  sides  of  their  characters.  Gifford,  the 
editor  of  the  Tory  "  Quarterly  Review," — "  a  position," 
says  Hazlitt,  "for  which  he  was  eminently  qualified  by 
a  happy  combination  of  defects,  natural  and  acquired," 
— Gifford,  the  libeller  of  the  United  States,  and  a 
critic  of  the  school  of  distaste,  disappointed  his  an- 
ticipations. "I  found  him  a  short,  deformed,  and 
ugly  little  man,  with  a  large  head,  sunk  between  his 


248  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

shoulders,  and  one  of  his  eyes  turned  outward ;  but 
withal,  one  of  the  best-natured,  most  open,  and  well- 
bred  gentlemen  I  have  met."  Gifford  introduced  him 
to  Byron.  It  is  curious  to  the  present  generation  of 
readers,  who  know  what  Byron  was  in  1815,  to  read 
the  account  of  the  young  American's  impression  of 
his  character  at  that  time.  Byron,  as  he  appeared 
to  Ticknor,  contradicted  all  his  expectations.  "  In- 
stead of  having  a  thin  and  rather  sharp  and  anxious 
face,  as  he  has  in  his  pictures,  it  is  round,  open,  and 
smiling ;  his  eyes  are  light  and  not  black ;  his  air 
easy  and  careless,  not  forward  and  striking;  and  I 
found  his  manners  affable  and  gentle,  the  tones 
of  his  voice  low  and  conciliating,  his  conversation 
gay,  pleasant,  and  interesting  in  an  uncommon  de- 
gree." Byron  talked  on  various  subjects,  —  America, 
his  own  poems,  Lord  Holland,  Scott,  Jeffrey,  Rogers, 
—  in  a  style  which  would  not  have  misbecome  a 
teacher  of  a  Sunday-school.  Then  a  friend  rushed 
into  the  room  with  the  announcement  of  Napoleon's 
defeat  at  Waterloo,  and  his  retreat  toward  Paris. 
Byron  paused  a  moment,  and  then  exclaimed,  "  I  am 

d d  sorry  for  it ! "     After  another  slight  pause, 

he  added,  "  I  did  n't  know  but  I  might  live  to  see 
Castlereagh's  head  on  a  pole.  But  I  suppose  I  shan't 
now."     After  Meade's  victory  at  Gettysburg,  think  of 

Bryant   or    Longfellow   exclaiming,   "  I    am    d d 

sorry  for  it ! "  Byron,  in  this  flash  of  seemingly  ec- 
centric caprice,  indicated  the  elemental  character  of 
his  genius,  which  was  independent  of  nationality  as  of 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  249 

all  the  other  constraints  imposed  by  civilization.  Tick- 
nor  did  not  seem  to  understand  the  import  of  Byron's 
impatient  exclamation.  It  remains,  however,  as  a 
most  remarkable  indication  of  that  passion  for  revolt 
and  anarchy,  which  was  inherent  in  his  emotional 
nature,  and  that  scorn  of  all  the  limitations  on  self- 
will  which  was  a  characteristic  of  his  somewhat 
chaotic  mind.  What  struck  Ticknor  most  in  his  in- 
tercourse with  Byron  were  his  superficial  qualities,  his 
geniality,  his  toleration,  his  frank  confession  of  his 
own  faults,  his  readiness  to  do  justice  to  all  who  might 
be  called  his  rivals  in  the  race  for  poetical  eminence, 
and  his  tender  courtesy  to  his  wife.  The  poet,  in- 
deed, seems  to  have  had  a  liking  for  the  young 
American,  and  to  have  shown  him  only  the  amiable 
traits  of  his  character.  "  I  think,"  says  Ticknor  in 
his  diary,  "  I  have  received  more  kindness  from  Lord 
Byron  than  from  any  person  in  England  on  whom  I 
had  not  the  regular  claim  of  a  letter  of  introduction." 
On  the  last  day  of  June,  1815,  Ticknor  left  London 
for  Gottingen,  where  he  remained  for  twenty  months, 
pursuing  his  studies  at  that  leading  German  univer- 
sity, with  an  ardor  which  left  him  no  time  for  amuse- 
ment or  society.  The  intellectual  atmosphere  of  the 
place  was  favorable  to  habits  of  industry.  "  If  a 
man  who  means  to  have  any  reputation  as  a  scholar," 
he  wrote,  "  sees  his  best  friend  once  a  week,  it  is 
thought  quite  often  enough."  Here  he  first  felt  the 
vast  distance  between  German  and  American  scholar- 
ship.    Had  he  been  naturally  inclined  to  indolence, 


250  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

he  would  have  been  shamed  into  exertion  by  the  fact 
that  some  of  his  instructors  were  not  much  older 
than  himself,  and  appeared  to  be  his  superiors,  rather 
by  their  accomplishments  than  their  talents.  The 
acquirements  of  his  Greek  tutor,  Dr.  Schultze,  forced 
from  him  the  confession  that  in  the  United  States 
"  we  do  not  know  what  a  Greek  scholar  is ;  we  do  not 
even  know  the  process  by  which  a  man  is  to  be  made 
one."  Stung  by  the  spirit  of  emulation,  he  devoted 
his  time  from  five  in  the  morning  to  ten  at  night, 
with  short  interruptions,  to  his  various  studies,  learn- 
ing, among  other  things,  that  recreation  may  be 
found  in  some  of  the  finer  forms  of  work ;  that  the 
weariness  resulting  from  labor  undertaken  from  a 
sense  of  duty  is  charmed  away  by  the  labor  which  is 
genially  welcomed  as  a  means  of  delight.  Probably 
Ticknor  was  never  happier  than  during  the  twenty 
months  he  passed  in  Gottingen,  "unresting  and  un- 
hasting"  in  his  tireless  pursuit  of  knowledge,  —  not 
"under  difficulties,"  but  under  the  facilities  of  such 
teachers  and  professors  as  Dissen,  Benecke,  Schultze, 
Eichhorn,  Gauss,  and  Blumenbach. 

In  the  autumn  of  1816,  during  a  vacation  of  six 
weeks,  he  visited,  among  other  places,  Leipsic,  Dres- 
den, Berlin,  Wittenberg,  Halle,  and  Weimar,  well 
recommended  by  letters  of  introduction  to  the  nota- 
bilities of  northern  Germany.  At  Weimar  he  had, 
of  course,  an  interview  with  Goethe.  Indeed,  if  Tick- 
nor had  taken  it  into  his  head  to  go  to  Olympus,  the 
first  person  he  would  have  sought,  with  a  letter  of 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  251 

introduction  in  his  pocket,  would  have  been  Jupiter. 
In  his  diary  he  describes  the  great  German  as 
"  something  above  the  middle  size,  large  but  not 
gross,  with  gray  hair,  a  dark,  ruddy  complexion,  and 
full,  rich  black  eyes,  which,  though  dimmed  with  age, 
are  still  very  expressive.  His  whole  countenance  is 
old  ;  and  though  his  features  are  quiet  and  composed, 
they  bear  decided  traces  of  the  tumult  of  early  feeling 
and  passion."  Goethe  was  simple  in  manner,  spoke 
in  praise  of  Wolf,  and  in  reference  to  Byron's  separa- 
tion from  his  wife,  said  it  was  involved  in  such  mys- 
tery, and  was  so  poetical  in  itself,  that  if  Byron  had 
invented  it  he  could  hardly  have  had  a  more  fortu- 
nate subject  for  his  genius.  "  He  fervently  deplored 
the  want  of  extemporary  eloquence  in  Germany,  and 
said,  what  I  never  heard  before,  but  which  is  emi- 
nently true,  that  the  English  is  kept  a  much  more 
living  language  by  its  influence."  "Here,"  said 
Goethe,  "  we  have  no  eloquence  :  our  preaching  is 
a  monotonous,  middling  declamation ;  public  debate 
we  have  not  at  all;  and  if  a  little  inspiration  some- 
times comes  to  us  in  our  lecture-rooms,  it  is  out  of 
place,  for  eloquence  does  not  teach."  In  after-life, 
Ticknor  was  wont  to  quote  this  last  observation  in  a 
more  restricted  sense  than  Goethe  probably  meant  it. 
Eloquence  does  teach  when  it  not  only  communicates 
knowledge,  but  the  thirst  for  knowledge.  Scientists 
of  ardent  natures,  like  Tyndall,  William  B.  Rogers, 
and  Agassiz,  inflame  students  with  a  love  of  the  sub- 
jects on  which  they  discourse.     The  teacher  who  sue- 


252  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

ceeds  best,  is  he  who  puts  his  whole  soul  into  his 
speech,  and  thus  imparts  his  soul  to  others  in  the 
very  process  of  conveying  information  to  their  under- 
standings. Barry  Cornwall's  ideal  of  the  true  teacher 
can  never  be  antiquated :  — 

"  For  he  was  like  the  sun,  giving  me  light, 
Pouring  into  the  caves  of  my  young  brain 
Knowledge  from  his  bright  fountains," 

In  March,  181T,  Mr.  Ticknor,  then  at  the  age  of 
twenty-five,  left  Gottingen  for  an  extended  tour  in 
France,  Italy,  Spain,  and  Great  Britain.  At  Frank- 
fort he  met  Frederick  von  Schlegel,  whom  he  found 
to  be  "  a  short,  thick  little  gentleman,  with  the  ruddy, 
vulgar  health  of  a  full-fed  father  of  the  Church,"  full 
of  knowledge,  and  eager  to  impart  it.  In  the  evening 
of  the  same  day  he  visited  Yon  Berg,  the  President 
of  the  Diet,  who  impressed  him  as  a  man  of  almost 
universal  information,  possessing  among  other  accom- 
plishments a  minute  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the 
American  Revolution,  which  he  specially  indicated  by 
jocosely  directing  his  wife  to  give  Ticknor  a  very 
small  cup  of  tea,  if  she  gave  him  any  at  all,  because 
he  came  from  a  town  which  had  once  rebelliously 
wasted  and  destroyed  several  cargoes  of  it. 

At  Paris  Ticknor  resided  nearly  five  months,  and 
had  his  usual  good  fortune  in  meeting  and  conversing 
with  all  the  celebrities,  native  and  foreign,  collected 
in  that  centre  of  intellectual  Europe.  CEhlenschlager, 
tlie  Danish  poet  and  dramatist,  then  at  the  age  of 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  258 

forty,  appeared  to  him  "hearty,  happy,  and  gay,  en- 
joying life  as  well  ^s  anybody,  but  living  in  Paris 
knowing  and  caring  for  nobody,  .  .  .  vain,  but  not 
oppressively  so."  This  last  trait  is  felicitously 
touched.  In  social  intercourse  the  vain  man,  whose 
vanity  is  but  one  form  of  his  benevolence,  sees  others 
in  the  same  deceptive  light  in  which  he  views  himself. 
He  becomes  oppressive  only  when  he  diminishes  other 
individualities  in  magnifying  his  own.  The  two  men 
in  Paris  who  made  the  strongest  impression  on  Tick- 
nor  were  Germans,  A.  W.  Schlegel  and  Humboldt. 
The  former,  he  writes,  "  wakes  at  four  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and,  instead  of  getting  up,  has  his  candle 
brought  to  him,  and  reads  five  or  six  hours,  then 
sleeps  two  or  three  more,  and  then  gets  up  and  works 
till  dinner  at  six.  From  this  time  till  ten  o'clock 
he  is  a  man  of  the  world,  in  society,  and  overflowing 
with  amusing  conversation ;  but  at  ten  he  goes  to  his 
study  and  works  until  midnight,  when  he  begins  the 
same  course  again." 

Schlegel  was  undoubtedly  a  coxcomb  in  dress  and 
manner,  and  his  affectations  were  justly  subjects  of 
ridicule ;  but  Ticknor  does  not,  in  all  his  interviews 
with  him,  sufficiently  recognize  the  fact  that  he  was 
one  of  the  greatest  interpretive  critics  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  His  lectures  on  Dramatic  Art,  deliv- 
ered in  Vienna  in  1808,  are  landmarks  in  the  progress 
of  criticism  as  it  advanced  toward  something  which 
may  be  called  a  science.  He  told  Ticknor  that  in 
writing  them  in  German,  he  had  endeavored  to  keep 


254  GEOEGE  TICKNOR. 

before  him  as  models  English  and  French  prose, 
which  he  preferred  to  the  ordinary  prose  style  of 
German  authors.  The  young  American  scholar  was 
able  conscientiously  to  say  that  he  thought  the  critic 
had  succeeded  in  this  attempt.  The  wonder  is  that 
neither  in  his  journals  nor  in  his  letters  does  he  seem 
to  appreciate  A.  W.  Schlegel's  supreme  gift  as  a 
critic,  —  his  power  of  transforming  himself  into  an 
inhabitant  of  the  country  whose  literature  he  pre- 
sented and  criticised,  and  of  following  the  develop- 
ment of  its  literature  from  age  to  age,  with  an 
imaginative  sympathy  with  the  conditions  and  cir- 
cumstances under  which  its  masterpieces  were  pro- 
duced. The  "  History  of  Spanish  Literature  "  would 
have  been  a  more  fascinating,  if  not  a  more  learned, 
work,  had  Ticknor  caught  from  Schlegel  the  funda- 
mental point  of  view  from  which  the  literature  of  a 
nation  should  be  'surveyed.  We  have  in  these  vol- 
umes abundant  testimonies  to  Schlegel's  knowledge 
and  brilliancy  in  conversation,  but  not  a  word  as  to 
those  principles  of  criticism  for  which  he  is  now 
remembered  among  men. 

At  Paris  Ticknor  also  seems  to  have  had  rare 
opportunities  of  meeting  Alexander  von  Humboldt, 
—  Alexander  the  Great,  as  distinguished  even  from 
his  eminent  brother  William.  Humboldt  in  1817 
was  in  the  full  flush  of  his  fame,  magnificent  in 
physical  development  as  in  mental  power.  Ticknor 
found  that  he  was  superior  to  all  conventions,  though 
the  favorite  of  fashionable  society,  —  sleeping  when 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  255 

he  was  weary,  eating  when  he  was  hungry,  and 
studying  from  ten  to  fifteen  hours  out  of  the  twenty- 
four.  If  he  was  invited  to  dinner  at  six  o'clock,  he 
considered  the  invitation  simply  as  an  opportunity  for 
intellectual  amusement  and  excitement,  and  really 
dined  at  a  restaurant  at  five.  His  high  rank  and 
captivating  manners,  joined  to  his  prodigious  acquire- 
ments, rendered  him  one  of  the  idols  of  Parisian 
society.  Ticknor  in  warmly  testifying  to  what  he 
was,  is  provokingly  reticent  as  to  what  he  said.  He 
saw  also  all  the  prominent  persons  of  the  Restora- 
tion,—  Madame  de  Stael,  Lacretelle,  Benjamin  Con- 
stant, Barante,  Villemain,  Chateaubriand,  Madame 
Recamier,  the  Duke  and  Duchess  de  Broglie,  La- 
fayette, Talma,  and  others. 

While  in  Gottingen  he  received  the  news  of  his 
appointment  as  Professor  of  the  French  and  Spanish 
Languages  and  the  Belles-Lettres,  in  Harvard  College. 
His  letter  to  his  father  in  relation  to  this  appoint- 
ment shows  him  to  have  been  a  model  son.  He 
thought  he  could  not  accept  the  office  without  pro- 
longing his  European  tour  some  six  months,  in  order 
to  spend  that  time  in  Spain,  to  acquire  a  competent 
knowledge  of  the  Spanish  language  and  literature. 
His  acceptance  of  the  post  was  delayed  until  Novem- 
ber, 1817,  when  he  was  in  Rome.  In  September  of 
that  year  he  left  Paris  for  Italy,  visiting,  on  the  way, 
Lafayette,  at  La  Grange.  He  then  proceeded  to 
Geneva,  crossed  the  Alps  by  the  Simplon  road,  and 
arrived  at  Milan  on  the  first  of  October,  and  on  the 


256  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

second  of  November,  at  Rome.  He  spent  four  months 
in  that  city  engaged  in  the  study  of  Italian,  and 
under  a  competent  guide  "  in  exploring  the  different 
portions  of  ancient  Rome  and  their  ruins."  In  Italy, 
as  in  Germany  and  France,  he  endeavored  to  master 
the  language  so  that  he  could  speak  it  well.  In  high 
society  he  found  that  Italian  was  not  the  language  of 
conversation,  except  at  Canova's  parties,  and  some- 
times at  those  of  the  Portuguese  Ambassador.  Resi-^ 
dence  in  Rome  only  perfected  the  fluency  and  facility 
with  which  he  could  speak  French  and  German.  At 
last,  in  despair,  he  hired  a  professor  of  architecture 
to  teach  him  Italian  by  explaining  to  him  in  that 
language  the  principles,  theory,  and  history  of  the 
art.  He  says  that  of  all  the  sovereigns  in  Europe  he 
most  desired  to  see  the  Pope,  on  account  of  the  firm- 
ness and  dignity  he  had  displayed  in  "  difficult  and 
distressing  circumstances,  when  kings  and  govern- 
ments, of  force  incomparably  greater,  had  shrunk 
and  yielded  "  to  the  autocracy  of  Napoleon.  He  was 
presented  by  Abb^  Taylor,  an  Irish  Catholic,  and 
was  accompanied  by  Professor  Bell,  the  distinguished 
anatomist  of  Edinburgh.  "  On  entering  we  knelt  and 
kissed  his  hand.  He  is,  you  know,  very  old,  but  he 
received  us  standing,  and  was  dressed  with  character- 
istic simplicity  and  humility  as  a  friar,  without  the 
slightest  ornament  to  distinguish  his  rank.  Bell 
spoke  no  Italian,  and  therefore  the  conversation  was 
chiefly  with  us,  and,  as  we  were  Americans,  entirely 
on  America.     The  Pope  talked  a  good  deal  about  our 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  257 

universal  toleration,  and  praised  it  as  much  as  if  it 
were  a  doctrine  of  his  own  religion,  adding  that  he 
thanked  God  for  having  at  last  driven  all  thoughts  of 
persecution  from  the  world,  since  persuasion  was  the 
only  possible  means  of  promoting  piety,  though  vio- 
lence might  promote  hypocrisy."  The  Pope  went  so 
far  as  to  declare  that  the  time  would  come  when  the 
New  would  dictate  to  the  Old  World.  He  spoke  with 
particular  emphasis  of  the  naval  successes  of  the 
United  States  against  the  English  in  the  war  of  1812. 
"But,"  said  the  Irish  Abb^,  "the  Americans  had 
done  very  well,  because  they  had  always  the  English 
for  masters."  "  Yes,  M.  Abb^,"  answered  the  Pope, 
jocosely,  "  that  is  very  true ;  but  I  would  advise  you 
to  take  care  that  the  scholars  do  not  learn  too  much 
for  the  masters."  Indeed,  the  Bostonian  was  natu- 
rally surprised  to  hear  from  the  lips  of  a  Pope  prin- 
ciples of  religious  toleration  which  would  have  been 
heartily  indorsed  by  William  EUery  Channing,  at  that 
time  under  the  ban  of  Protestant  orthodoxy  in  New 
England. 

From  Italy  Ticknor  proceeded  to  Spain,  where  he 
stayed  about  six  months.  The  sixty  pages  of  his  let- 
ters and  diary  devoted  to  Spain  are  full  of  entertain- 
ment and  instruction.  As  soon  as  he  had  crossed  the 
Pyrenees  he  discovered  that  he  had  not  only  passed- 
from  one  country  and  climate  to  another,  but  had 
gone  back  two  centuries  in  time.  He  found,  as  re- 
gards manners,  that  Cervantes  and  Le  Sage  were  the 

historians  on  whose  statements  he  should  depend  for 

17 


258  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

information.  The  king  he  did  not  hesitate  to  call  a 
vulgar  blackguard ;  the  aristocracy,  with  some  excep- 
tions, appeared  to  him  hopelessly  corrupt ;  the  middle 
class,  to  be  mediocre  and  inefficient ;  and  the  peasants, 
to  constitute  the  finest  material  he  had  met  in  Europe 
out  of  which  to  make  a  great  and  generous  people, 
but  that  this  material  was  either  unused  or  perverted. 
He  had  unusual  opportunities  afforded  him  of  prose- 
cuting his  Spanish  studies,  and  the  society  to  which 
he  was  introduced  was  the  best  in  Spain ;  but  he  was 
shocked  at  the  ignorance  of  librarians  and  at  the  bad 
arrangement  and  administration  of  the  libraries  he 
explored.  In  the  great  library  at  Madrid  he  found 
"  confusion  worse  confounded."  In  a  lumber-room 
of  this  library,  where  there  was  a  great  pile  of  books 
called  useless,  and,  as  his  conductor  warned  him,  of 
no  more  value  than  mere  waste  paper,  the  second 
book  he  took  up  was  La  Place's  "  M^canique  Celeste." 
In  November,  1818,  he  sailed  from  Lisbon  for  Eng- 
land, and  as  quickly  as  possible  left  London  for 
Paris,  where  he  found  books  and  means  for  studying 
Spanish  literature  which  he  had  vainly  sought  in 
Spain.  Socially  he  enjoyed  great  advantages,  being 
admitted  into  all  salons^  whether  those  of  the  ultra 
loyalists  or  of  the  liberals.  His  journals  furnish  a 
provoking  display  of  celebrated  names,  and  some 
piquant  descriptions  of  the  persons  to  whom  the 
names  were  attached,  but  little  of  their  conversation 
which  may  be  considered  characteristic. 

In  the  middle  of  January,  1819,  Ticknor  arrived  in 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  259 

London.  The  house  he  most  frequented  was  Lord 
Holland's,  for  there  he  mingled  in  a  literary  and  po- 
litical society  such  as  was  unexcelled  by  any  he  had 
seen  in  Europe,  including,  as  it  did,  Mackintosh, 
Brougham,  Sydney  Smith,  Frere,  Heber,  Lord  Lans- 
downe.  Lord  Lauderdale,  and  Lord  John  Russell, 
among  other  frequent  guests.  Lord  Holland  was  the 
most  gracious  of  hosts,  but  his  wife  was  the  worst- 
mannered  woman  in  Great  Britain.  It  is  astonishing 
how  he  contrived  to  make  his  dinners  and  receptions 
the  most  attractive  in  England,  while  every  English- 
man of  genius  who  accepted  his  invitations  was 
snubbed  and  insulted,  more  than  once,  by  his  vixenish 
spouse.  The  stories  told  of  her  conduct  make  one 
wonder  that  men  who  had  any  self-respect  should 
submit  to  her  caprices,  even  when,  by  submission, 
they  were  introduced  to  such  society.  Ticknor  dis- 
liked her  from  first  to  last,  though  he  won  her  regard 
by  the  courage  with  which  he  replied  to  an  insulting 
question  by  a  more  insulting  answer.  She  informed 
him  that  she  understood  New  England  was  originally 
colonized  by  convicts  sent  over  from  the  mother- 
country.  He  retorted  that  he  was  not  aware  of  it,  but 
said  that  some  of  the  Yassall  family  (the  ancestors 
of  Lady  Holland)  had  settled  early  in  Massachu- 
setts ;  that  a  house  built  by  one  of  them  was  stand- 
ing in  Cambridge ;  and  that  a  marble  monument  to 
one  of  the  family  was  to  be  seen  in  King's  Chapel, 
Boston.  She  was  at  first  stunned  by  this  imperti- 
nence ;   but  in  the   conversation  which  ensued   she 


260  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

asked  him  to  send  her  a  drawing  of  the  monument, 
which  on  his  return  to  Boston  he  was  careful  to  do. 
This  is  the  most  conspicuous  instance  in  Ladj  Hol- 
land's long  career  in  which  her  insolence  and  malice 
were  fairly  rebuked  and  overthrown.  Shall  we  not 
exclaim,  in  view  of  the  victory  of  our  countryman 
over  obstacles  from  which  the  first  poets,  politi- 
cians, and  publicists  of  Europe  had  shrunk  appalled, 
"  Bravo,  Ticknor "  ?  From  that  time  Lady  Holland 
liked  him  :  he  never  overcame  his  dislike  of  her. 

As  a  natural  result  of  his  success  in  London 
society,  Mr.  Ticknor  had  an  opportunity  to  be  invited 
as  a  guest  to  some  of  the  great  country  mansions  of 
England.  He  passed  two  days  at  Hatfield,  the  seat  of 
the  Marquis  of  Salisbury,  and  three  days  at  Woburn 
Abbey,  the  seat  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford.  At  both  of 
these  places  he  met  distinguished  personages.  His 
residence  in  Edinburgh  brought  him  into  relation 
with  all  the  prominent  Scotch  celebrities,  of  whom 
Walter  Scott  and  Playfair  appeared  to  him  the,  best. 
John  Wilson,  not  then  developed  into  the  vehement 
Professor  of  Moral  Philosophy  and  the  Christopher 
North  of  the  "  Noctes,"  but  kno^vn  as  the  author  of 
"  The  Isle  of  Palms,"  seemed  to  him  "  a  pretending 
young  man."  James  Hogg  was  so  vulgar  that  he 
thought  his  conversation  corresponded  to  his  name, 
and  was  strangely  out  of  keeping  with  the  exquisite 
delicacy  of  sentiment  embodied  in  his  poem  of  "  Kil- 
meny."  Indeed,  in  Hogg,  as  in  Ben  Jonson,  fineness 
of  fancy  seems  to  have  been  a  sort  of  secretion  of  his 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  261 

mind,  and  to  exist  apart  from  the  general  character 
of  the  man,  which  was  bluff,  rude,  and  coarse.  Mac- 
kenzie the  novelist  appeared  to  him  "  a  lively  little 
gentleman,"  voluble  in  talk  on  common  subjects,  but 
conveying  no  notion  of  "  The  Man  of  Feeling." 
Jeffi'cy,  whom  he  had  met  before  in  Boston,  he  found 
always  charming,  but  though  brilliant  in  all  parties 
and  assemblies,  he  was  seen  to  best  advantage  in  his 
own  house.  Dr.  Thomas  Brown,  the  metaphysician, 
and  the  successor  of  Dugald  Stewart  in  the  Univer- 
sity, impressed  him  as  a  man  affecting  in  society  a 
"  dapper  sort  of  elegance,  and  writing  poetry  just 
above  thread-paper  verses."  Lord  Elgin,  then  about 
fifty,  he  set  down  as  a  "  fat,  round,  and  stupid  man," 
whose  conversation  justified  what  his  appearance  prom- 
ised. Scott  delighted  him  beyond  measure.  Among 
other  experiences  of  his  intercourse  with  the  great 
poet  and  novelist,  he  records  going  with  him  to  the 
theatre  to  see  a  representation  of  "  Rob  Roy,"  a  drama 
founded  on  the  novel.  When  the  performance  was 
over,  Scott  turned  to  him  and  said,  "  That 's  fine, 
sir  ;  I  think  that  is  very  fine ;".  and  then  looked  up  to 
him  with  "  a  most  comical  expression  of  face,  half- 
way between  cunning  and  humor,"  and  added, "  All  I 
wish  is,  that  Jedediah  Cleishbotham  could  be  here  to 
enjoy  it ! " 

Mr.  Ticknor  left  Liverpool  on  the  last  day  in  April, 
1819,  and  arrived  in  Boston  early  in  June.  In  Au- 
gust, his  introduction  to  the  professorships  of  the 
French   and   Spanish  languages  and  of  the   Belles- 


262  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

Lettres,  in  Harvard  College,  took  place.  It  is  safe  to 
assert  that  this  young  professor,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
eight,  was  the  most  accomplished  student  of  general 
literature  then  resident  in  the  United  States.  So  far 
as  comprehensive  culture  could  fashion  a  man  into 
largeness  and  fulness  of  mind,  he  was  a  model  profes- 
sor. He  had  not  only  studied  hard,  and  accumulated 
a  valuable  library  of  books  selected  by  himself  during 
his  four  years'  residence  abroad,  but  he  had  enjoyed 
the  inestimable  advantage  of  a  conversational  inti- 
macy with  most  of  the  first  minds  in  Europe.  He 
had,  by  contact  with  such  minds,  collected,  in  his  own 
words,  "  that  sort  of  undefined  and  indefinite  feeling 
respecting  books  and  authors  which  exists  in  Europe 
as  a  kind  of  unwritten  tradition,  and  never  comes  to 
us  because  nobody  takes  the  pains  to  collect  it  sys- 
tematically, though  it  is  often  the  electric  principle 
that  gives  life  to  the  dead  mass  of  inefficient  knowl- 
edge, and  vigor  and  spirit  to  inquiry."  This  is  one 
of  the  profoundest  observations  in  all  Ticknor's  writ- 
ings. There  is  a  certain  something  in  the  intellect 
and  heart  of  a  prominent  statesman,  or  man  of  let- 
ters, or  man  of  science,  which  cannot  be  learned  from 
what  he  publishes,  but  which  transpires  in  his  famil- 
iar talk.  Daniel  Webster  even  went  so  far  as  to  say 
that  conversation,  in  the  large  sense  of  being  a  com- 
merce between  good  minds,  was  the  most  important 
element  in  culture.  The  secret  thought  underlying 
written  thought,  the  secret  doubt  underlying  positive 
assertion  in  written  books,  escape  in  the  genial  con- 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  263 

verse  of  one  strong  intellect  with  another.  Ticknor, 
accordingly,  had  acquired  much  more  in  Europe  than 
was  contained  in  the  volumes  he  brought  with  him  to 
Boston.  It  may  have  been  that  it  was  knowledge  of 
this  kind  which  brought  him  into  continual  collisions 
of  opinion  with  the  authorities  of  Harvard  College. 
He  appeared  as  a  general  reformer  of  the  methods  of 
college  instruction  ;  but  after  having  been  an  active 
professor  for  fifteen  years  he  resigned  his  position, 
with  the  feeling  that  he  had  succeeded  perfectly  in 
his  own  department,  but  had  failed  miserably  in  pro- 
curing such  changes  in  the  other  departments  as  he 
deemed  necessary  "  to  make  the  large  means  of  the 
College  more  effectual  for  the  education  of  the  com- 
munity." But  this  is  anticipating  events.  In  1821 
he  married  Miss  Anna  Eliot,  the  daughter  of  one  of 
the  first  of  Boston  merchants, — a  marriage  which  was 
certainly  among  the  happiest  recorded  in  the  annals 
of  men  of  letters.  His  social  position  in  Boston  was 
in  the  front  rank  both  of  fashion  and  literary  culture. 
Among  his  intimate  friends  were  the  two  Prescotts, 
father  and  son,  F.  C.  Gray,  Dr.  Jacob  Bigelow,  the 
Rev.  William  E.  Channing,  James  Savage,  and  Daniel 
Webster.  Of  these,  James  Savage — generally  known 
later  in  life  as  the  genealogist  of  New  England  — 
was,  in  character,  one  of  the  solidest  of  the  "  solid 
men  of  Boston."  He  was  the  soul  of  integrity  and 
honor ;  every  form  of  baseness,  meaness,  and  fraud 
instinctively  shrank  from  him  abashed  ;  no  scoundrel 
of  any  kind,  however  rich  or  famous,  could  appear  in 


264  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

any  company  which  he  honored  with  his  presence, 
without  slinking  away  in  abject  fear  of  such  a  chival- 
ric  champion  of  common-sense  and  common  honesty. 
His  hatred  of  iniquity  sometimes  blazed  out  in  a  fury 
of  wrathful  eloquence  which  amazed  those  who  spe- 
cially esteemed  him  as  a  prodigy  of  genealogical 
knowledge,  and  even  disturbed  the  equanimity  of 
those  who  chiefly  knew  him  as  the  most  valued  and 
trustworthy  of  friends.  It  is  curious  that  James 
Savage,  the  most  eloquent  of  men  when  his  soul  was 
stirred  to  its  depths,  should  now  be  particularly  hon- 
ored merely  as  an  accurate  antiquarian.  We  have 
listened  to  him  at  times,  when  his  heart,  kindled  by 
the  memory  of  some  rascalities  of  politicians  he  had 
formerly  abhorred,  freed  his  utterance  from  all  the 
feebleness  of  old  age,  and  his  voice  rang  in  piercing 
tones  through  the  whole  house,  and  was  even  heard 
by  passers-by  in  the  street.  Thomas  Jefferson  was 
his  pet  aversion,  and,  when  provoked  by  opposition, 
his  invective  against  that  apostle  of  democracy  gave 
to  his  voice  a  penetrating  power,  which  almost  ena- 
bled the  neighborhood  to  partake  of  the  edification 
and  enjoyment  that  were  specially  intended  only  for 
his  guests.  A  certain  tough  and  stalwart  manliness 
characterized  all  he  said  and  did.  It  was  seen  in  his 
piety,  in  his  benevolence,  in  his  social  affections,  in 
his  mode  of  conducting  business,  even  in  his  rapid, 
defiant  walk  as  he  paced  the  streets.  As  you  passed 
him  on  the  sidewalk,  you  felt  the  city  was  the  safer 
for  bavins:  sucli  an  embodiment  of   straightforward 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  265 

integrity  "vrithiQ  its  limits.  In  short,  he  was  a  model 
citizen,  —  a  character  which,  to  our  national  injury, 
is  gradually  losing  its  old  command  of  the  respect  of 
voters. 

During  the  years  of  Mr.  Ticknor's  labors  as  a  pro- 
fessor, though  engaged  in  a  constant  conflict  with  the 
men  who  governed  Harvard  College,  he  enjoyed  unu- 
sual opportunities  of  discoursing  with  the  most  eminent 
Americans  of  his  time.  In  1835  he  resigned  his  pro- 
fessorship, and  with  his  family  made  a  second  visit  to 
Europe.  Judging  from  the  letters  and  diaries  in  these 
volumes,  it  was  a  triumphal  procession.  Every  door, 
however  jealously  guarded  from  ordinary  intrusion, 
seems  to  have  felt  the  magic  of  Mr.  Ticknor's  "  open 
sesame."  His  second  invasion  of  Europe,  indeed,  was 
even  more  victorious  than  his  first.  He  sought  every- 
body, saw  everybody,  and  was  welcomed  by  everybody. 
It  is  useless  to  record  his  social  exploits  in  detail.  If 
anybody  can  name  a  European  celebrity  he  should 
have  liked  to  see,  during  the  period  between  1835  and 
1838,  he  must  be  singularly  exacting,  unless  he  finds 
the  name  of  that  person  in  the  index  of  this  book. 
Among  other  men  whom  he  now  met  for  the  second 
time,  he  was  captivated  anew  by  Sydney  Smith.  In 
1819,  in  witnessing  his  witty  victories  in  the  contests 
of  wits  at  Holland  House,  he  had  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  Sydney  Smith's  humorous  sallies  were  really 
"  logic  in  masquerade  ; "  and  when,  in  1835,  he  went 
to  hear  him  preach  at  St.  Paul's,  he  decided  that  the 
sermon  was  the  best  he  had  ever  heard   in   Great 


266  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

Britain,  though  he  had  listened  to  archbishops,  bishops, 
and  to  representatives  of  all  the  various  degrees  of  the 
Episcopal  hierarchy.  Still,  in  his  second  tour  one  is 
provoked  at  the  mention  of  so  many  names  associated 
with  so  few  ideas.  The  fashionable  lords,  ladies,  right 
honorables,  and  honorables  oppress  the  democratic 
imagination  with  a  sense  of  titles  of  rank  divorced 
from  titles  to  consideration.  It  is  vexatious  that  Lord 
this  and  Lady  that,  however  charming  in  their  sur- 
roundings, say  nothing  which  equals  in  piquancy  the 
ordinary  utterances  of  Grub  Street.  Without  taking 
the  extreme  view  of  Matthew  Arnold,  that  the  English 
aristocracy,  while  presenting  splendid  specimens  of 
gentlemanly  manners,  are  still  impenetrable  to  ideas, 
one  is  tempted  to  adopt  that  opinion  in  reading  Mr. 
Ticknor's  record  of  his  intercourse  with  them. 

It  is  impossible,  in  a  brief  review  like  the  present,  to 
do  more  than  direct  the  attention  of  the  reader  to  Mr. 
Ticknor's  accounts  of  his  interviews  with  Miss  Edge- 
worth  and  with  Wordsworth,  —  the  first  the  represen- 
tative of  common-sense,  and  the  second  of  the  sense 
which  is  uncommon  ;  of  his  descriptions  of  Ludwig 
Tieck,  and  of  his  fine  readings  of  Shakspeare's  plays ; 
of  his  reception  at  the  court  in  Dresden,  and  the  inti- 
macy he  formed  with  Prince  John  of  Saxony,  to  whom 
he  was  bound  by  an  interest  almost  equal  to  that  of 
the  Prince,  in  "  Dante ; "  and  of  his  conversations  with 
Neander,  Humboldt,  Ancillon,  Savigny,  Von  Raumer, 
Retzsch,  and  other  eminent  Germans.  Prince  John's 
translation  of  "  Dante  "  into  German  was  subjected  to 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  267 

as  severe  a  test  as  that  of  Longfellow's  into  English. 
Ticknor  was  present  when  Tieck  read  a  part  of  Prince 
John's  unpublished  translation  of  the  "  Purgatorio ; " 
and  the  scholars  present  were  relentless  in  criticisms. 
Mr.  Ticknor  was  surprised  at  the  popularity  of  his 
pastor,  Dr.  William  Ellery  Channing,  in  Europe.  He 
found  that  such  persons  as  Mrs.  Somerville  and  Joanna 
Baillie  considered  him  as  the  greatest  living  master  of 
English  prose ;  and  Channing' s  little  book  on  slavery, 
which  was  published  while  Ticknor  was  in  Dresden, 
added  immensely  to  his  European  reputation.  The 
demand  for  his  books  exceeded  the  supply ;  and  Baron 
Biilow  brought  to  Ticknor  a  letter  from  the  Duchess 
of  Anhalt-Dessau,  earnestly  asking  for  aid  in  her 
desire  to  procure  a  complete  copy  of  Channing's  works. 
At  Berlin  he  visited  Neander,  the  historian  of  the 
Christian  Church.  After  mounting  three  or  four 
flights  of  stairs,  he  found  Neander  in  his  scholastic 
den,  buried  in  books,  dirty  in  his  person,  so  near-sighted 
that  he  could  not  see  an  inch  before  his  nose,  so  ab- 
sorbed in  his  studies  that  ".his  practical  knowledge 
was  not  much  wider  than  his  vision,"  but  learned, 
earnest,  kind,  and  conscientious.  Alexander  von 
Humboldt  was  the  great  personage  at  that  time  in 
Berlin ;  the  favorite  of  the  monarch  and  the  idol  of 
the  multitude  ;  talking  freely  on  subjects  which  other 
courtiers  carefully  avoided ;  a  liberal  in  politics,  though 
the  pensioner  of  a  king ;  conversing  equally  well  on 
all  subjects  with  "  incredible  velocity,  both  in  French 
and  English,"  and  unsparing  in  sarcasms  on  individ- 


268  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

uals  he  deemed  worthy  of  his  contempt.  Mr.  Ticknor 
discovered  that  his  valet-de-place,  and  the  people  of  the 
inn  where  he  lodged,  thought  more  of  him  when  they 
learned  that  he  was  a  friend  of  Humboldt. 

At  Vienna,  Mr.  Ticknor  easily  made  his  way  into 
the  most  exclusive  society  of  that  city,  —  into  that 
select  and  sacred  circle  where  no  other  American 
citizen,  not  an  ambassador,  had  ever  before  been  ad- 
mitted. His  account  of  his  conversations  with  Prince 
Metternich  bring  into  strong  relief  the  prominent 
qualities  of  that  statesman.  Metternich  in  Austria, 
Nesselrode  in  Russia,  Palmerston  in  England,  might 
be  classed  together  as  politicians  who  simply  adapted 
their  theories  and  conduct  to  the  condition  of  the 
countries  they  aspired  to  govern.  None  of  them  had 
any  political  faith  apart  from  the  system  of  govern- 
ment established  in  the  nation  of  which  he  was  the 
first  minister.  Palmerston,  transplanted  to  St.  Peters- 
burg or  Vienna,  would  have  acted  as  Nesselrode  acted 
in  Russia,  and  as  Metternich  acted  in  Austria;  if 
Nesselrode  or  Metternich  had  been  transplanted  to 
England,  he  would  have  exercised  all  his  skill  in  an 
attempt  to  "  manage  "  the  House  of  Commons.  All 
these  statesmen  were  powerful,  not  on  account  of  their 
fixed  convictions  in  regard  to  any  of  the  principles  of 
government,  but  through  the  pliability  of  their  minds 
in  accommodating  principles  to  the  facts  "  of  the 
situation."  Metternich  seems  to  have  talked  frankly 
with  Ticknor.  "  In  your  country,"  he  said,  "  democ- 
racy is  a  reality ;  in  Europe  it  is  a  falsehood,  and  I 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  269 

hate  all  falsehoods.  ...  If  I  were  a  citizen  of  your 
country  I  should  belong  to  the  old  conservative  party, 
of  which  Washington  was  the  head.  .  .  .  You  have 
always  managed  your  affairs  with  foreign  nations  with 
ability.  .  .  .  You  will  become  more  and  more  demo- 
cratic ;  your  system  is  one  that  wears  out  fast.  I  do 
not  know  where  it  will  end,  nor  how  it  will  end  ;  but 
it  cannot  end  in  a  quiet,  ripe  old  age.  ...  I  do  not 
like  my  business.  The  present  state  of  Europe  dis- 
gusts me.  When  1  was  five-and-twenty  years  old  I 
foresaw  nothing  but  change  and  trouble  in  my  time ; 
and  I  sometimes  thought  that  I  would  leave  Europe 
and  go  to  America,  or  somewhere  else,  out  of  the  reach 
of  it.  But  my  place  was  here.  .  .  .  And  so  I  have 
gone  on,  and  have  been  here  at  the  head  of  affairs 
since  1809.  ...  I  labor  for  to-morrow.  It  is  with 
to-morrow  that  my  spirit  wrestles,  and  I  am  but  too 
happy  if  I  can  do  something  to  prevent  the  evil  it  may 
threaten,  or  add  something  to  the  good  of  which  it  is 
capable."  That  dreadful  "  to-morrow "  is  indeed  the 
phantom  which  all  wise  ministers  of  absolute  mon- 
archies have  the  most  cause  to  dread.  It  is  the  im- 
mense advantage  of  constitutional  governments  that 
with  them  to-morrow  is  abundantly  able  to  take  care 
of  itself. 

It  is  to  be  said  of  Professor  Ticknor,  that,  in  all  his 
interviews  with  potentates  and  prime  ministers,  he  ever 
stood  bravely  up  to  his  principles  as  a  citizen  of  a 
republic.  The  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany  having  asked 
him  in  what  country  he  thought  it  would  be  the  great- 


270  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

est  good  fortune  for  a  man  to  be  born,  he  instantly 
answered,  "  America ;  "  and  when  called  upon  to  give 
his  reasons  for  such  a  preference,  he  somewhat  bluntly 
replied  that  in  the  United  States  the  mass  of  the 
community,  "  by  being  occupied  about  the  affairs  of 
state,  instead  of  being  confined,  as  they  were  else- 
where, to  the  mere  drudgery  of  earning  their  own 
subsistence,"  were  more  truly  men  than  the  inhabit- 
ants of  other  countries,  and  therefore  "  it  was  more 
agreeable  and  elevating  to  live  among  them."  The 
Duke  "  blushed  a  little,  but  made  no  answer." 

Mr.  Ticknor  returned  from  Europe  in  the  summer 
of  1838.  His  friends  were  among  the  first  citizens  of 
Boston;  his  literature  and  scholarship,  generally  ac- 
knowledged, were  rendered  more  attractive  by  the  zest 
he  could  communicate  to  a  learned  conversation  by 
his  reminiscences  of  distinguished  European  men 
of  letters  and  scholars  with  whom  he  had  been  on 
familiar  terms ;  and  his  ample  means,  his  cultivated 
manners,  and  his  possession  of  the  best  house,  both 
as  regards  situation  and  elegance,  which  then  existed 
in  the  city,  made  him  a  leader  in  the  society  of  the 
place.  His  position  was  so  assured  that  one  of  his 
friends,  Nathan  Hale,  pleasantly  suggested  that  the 
name  of  Boston  be  changed  into  Ticknorville.  In  New 
York  and  other  cities  the  good  society  of  Boston  was 
for  a  long  time  regarded  as  the  select  circle  of  culti- 
vated gentlemen  and  ladies  in  which  Ticknor  moved, 
and  to  which  he  almost  gave  the  law.  The  mistake 
arose  from  an  oversight  of  the  fact  that  Boston  has  a 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  271 

hundred  "  circles ; "  that  nobody  who  has  anything  to 
say  on  any  subject,  whether  he  be  an  extreme  conser- 
vative or  an  extreme  radical  in  all  matters  relating  to 
society,  politics,  and  religion,  can  fail  to  find  there  a 
coterie  "  hospitable  to  his  thought ; "  and  that  though 
the  city  is  not  comprehensive  in  the  large  sense  of  in- 
cluding in  one  society  its  best  intellectual  and  moral 
forces,  it  is  comprehensive  in  the  minor  sense  of  afford- 
ing each  division  of  these  clashing  forces  a  social 
stronghold  of  its  own.  The  reader  of  these  "  Memoirs  " 
will  be  a  little  surprised  that  such  names  as  R.  W. 
Emerson,  John  G.  "Whittier,  Theodore  Parker,  Charles 
Sumner,  not  to  mention  others,  are  omitted  in  their 
pages  ;  but  then  these  men  had  inner  social  circles  of 
their  own.  It  was  not  to  be  supposed  that  Mr.  Ticknor 
could,  as  a  man  of  eminent  respectability,  have  any 
sympathy  with  their  audacities  of  thought  and  con- 
duct; but  we  are  disappointed  that  such  persons  as 
Longfellow,  Holmes,  and  Lowell  should  not  have  re- 
ceived the  just  praise,  either  in  diary  or  letter,  which 
is  lavished  by  him  on  some  European  titled  medioc- 
rities. No  notion  can  be  obtained  of  the  vital  intel- 
lectual and  moral  movement  going  on  in  Boston  and 
Massachusetts  from  1838  to  1861,  by  studying  Mr. 
Ticknor's  letters.  They  indicate  benevolent  feeling, 
patriotic  feeling,  good  sense ;  but  show  little  insight, 
though  an  occasional  glimpse  of  foresight.  As  a  po- 
litical thinker  he  was  somewhat  of  an  amateur,  taking 
no  active  part  in  politics,  but  generally  agreeing  in 
opinion  with  such  statesmen  and  jurists  as  Webster 


272  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

and  Curtis,  —  wise  to  the  extent  of  being  over-wise, 
thinking  that  political  logic  was  an  adequate  offset  to 
political  passion,  and  underrating  the  force  of  the  real 
elements  of  political  power  in  the  nation. 

As  a  man  of  letters  he  was  highly  esteemed  by 
his  friends,  and  doubtless  deserved  their  esteem  ; 
but  to  chance  visitors,  though  always  courteous, 
the  metallic  sharpness  of  his  voice  seemed  to  be  an 
affronting  expression  of  the  settled  convictions  of 
his  mind.  There  is  an  amusing  story  told  of  a  young 
man,  who  visited  him  for  the  first  and  last  time,  ven- 
turing modestly  to  suggest  that  the  case  of  Laura 
Bridgman  introduced  some  new  problems  in  the  phi- 
losophy of  perception  as  expounded  by  recent  meta- 
physicians, but  who  was  stunned  into  silence  by  Mr. 
Ticknor'  s  decisive  answer,  that "  Mr.  Locke's  opinions 
had  satisfied  him  on  all  matters  of  that  kind."  So- 
cially, '  his  judgments  ever  had  something  of  this 
positiveness  ;  his  intellect  was  not  open  to  new  ideas ; 
he  excluded  from  his  toleration  what  he  had  not 
included  in  his  studies  and  experience  ;  and  he  some- 
times weighed  heavily  on  the  Boston  mind  during  the 
period  he  was  supposed  to  have  undertaken  its  direc- 
tion. But  his  great  work,  "  The  History  of  Spanish 
Literature,"  was  all  this  time  in  process  of  compo- 
sition. He  enjoyed  during  ten  years,  as  Mackintosh 
enjoyed  during  nearly  his  whole  life,  all  the  glory  of  an 
expected  work,  before  a  page  of  it  had  been  printed. 
He  was  known  to  be  engaged  on  his  self-elected  task  ; 
he  had  purchased,  regardless   of  expense,  the  finest 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  273 

library  of  Spanish  literature  possessed  by  any  living 
man  ;  he  had  resided  in  Spain  ;  and  he  had  conversed 
with  every  European  and  American  celebrity  inter- 
ested in  the  history  and  literature  of  Spain.  The 
result  showed  how  conscientiously  exact  he  had  been 
in  verifying  every  date,  estimating  the  value  of  every 
authority,  weighing  the  worth  of  opposing  schools  of 
criticism.  He  indeed  produced  such  a  masterpiece  of 
patient  and  exhaustive  research  that  one  of  his  critics 
declared  there  were  not  six  men  in  Europe  capable 
of  reviewing  it,  as  far  as  the  facts  of  Spanish  litera- 
ture were  concerned.  Its  form  and  construction  were 
also  praised  by  such  critics  as  Prcscott  and  Motley, 
who  complimented  the  author  for  the  art  displayed  in 
dividing  the  subject  into  appropriate  periods,  and  con- 
necting the  literature  of  Spain  with  its  history.  The 
style  of  the  work  is  excellent  of  its  kind,  clear  in  state- 
ment, manly  in  tone,  but  somewhat  hard  and  cold  in 
its  sustained  elegance,  and  containing  few  of  those  fe- 
licities of  phrase  which  are  observable  in  the  author's 
private  diaries  and  correspondence. 

It  is  curious  that  Hallam's  letter  to  him  —  declaring 
that  his  work  indicated  a  marvellous  reach  of  knowl- 
edge in  a  foreigner,  that  it  could  not  be  superseded  by 
any  writer  out  of  Spain,  and  could  not,  unless  Spain 
became  very  different  from  what  it  was  in  1850,  be 
superseded  by  any  writer  in  it — should  have  objected 
to  Ticknor's  too  frequent  use  of  the  word  "  genial." 
The  word  might  be  offensively  prominent,  but  cer- 
tainly not   the  quality.     If  the  historian  of  Spanish 

18 


274  GEORGE  TICK:N'0R. 

Literature  failed  in  anything,  it  was  in  not  having 
a  thorough!}'  "  genial "  appreciation  of  the  peculiar 
character  of  the  Spanish  people  and  of  the  genius  of 
its  authors.  His  erudition  was  not  accompanied  with 
corresponding  imaginative  sympathy  and  insight ;  he 
never  thoroughly,  and  with  full  heart  and  divining 
mind,  put  himself  in  the  place  of  Lope  de  Vega, 
Cervantes,  and  Calderon  ;  the  secret  of  the  genius  of 
Spain  eluded  him  while  he  was  diligently  studying 
every  book  which  could  shed  the  faintest  light  upon 
it.  He  could  not,  by  any  effort  of  imagination,  cosily 
make  himself  a  contemporary  of  the  age  he  aimed  to 
depict.  The  materials  of  his  work  were,  after  years 
of  tireless  research,  lodged  safely  in  his  house  in  Park 
Street,  Boston ;  but  his  verdicts  on  the  great  writers 
of  Spain  were  unfortunately  delivered  from  the  same 
locality  with  a  Bostonian's  moral  energy  and  emphasis. 
The  wonder  is  that  this  greatest  of  Spanish  scholars, 
outside  of  Spain,  should  have  ignored  or  forgotten  all 
he  must  have  learned  from  such  German  students  of 
Spanish  literature  as  A.  W.  Schlegel  and  Ludwig  Tieck. 
Incomparably  superior  to  both  of  them,  so  far  as  re- 
gards an  external  knowledge  of  the  literature  of  Spain, 
he  was  perhaps  inferior  to  both  in  all  that  intuitive 
knowledge  which  comes  from  the  power  of  perceiving, 
realizing,  interpreting,  vitalizing,  and  reproducing  the 
spirit  of  a  literary  age,  and  the  souls  of  the  men  who 
shed  lustre  on  it.  Wide  as  had  been  his  experience  of 
many  lands  and  many  peoples,  he  could  not,  like  his 
friend  Prescott,  imaginatively  expatriate  himself,  and 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  275 

while  writing  on  Spanish  themes,  become  so  far  a  Span- 
iard for  the  time  as  to  detect,  by  sympatliy,  the  inner, 
vital  facts  of  the  Spanish  heart  and  imagination. 

As  a  citizen  of  Boston  Mr.  Ticknor  cheerfully  took 
upon  himself  the  duty  of  discharging  all  those  unre- 
munerated  services,  in  the  cause  of  education  and  be- 
nevolence, which  the  city  exacts  from  its  opulent  and 
cultivated  inhabitants.  In  Boston  a  man  loses  "  caste  " 
unless  he  submits  to  a  tax  on  his  time  and  property, 
entirely  dissociated  from  the  tax  levied  by  the  asses- 
sors. Benevolence  there  is  one  of  the  tests  of  re- 
spectability ;  and  selfishness  and  avarice,  pure  and 
undefiled  from  any  admixture  of  philanthropy,  are 
considered  not  only  inhuman,  but  unfashionable.  Mr. 
Ticknor,  though  a  member  of  many  benevolent  asso- 
ciations, was  specially  attracted  by  enterprises  which 
were  intended  to  advance  art,  literature,  and  science. 
The  Boston  Public  Library  —  which  is  now  the  best 
public  library  on  the  American  continent,  and  which 
promises  to  be  one  of  the  great  libraries  of  the  world  — 
is  indebted  to  him,  as  one  of  its  original  trustees,  not 
only  for  his  good  judgment  in  selecting  the  higher 
class  of  works,  but  for  making  it  so  popular  in  the 
free  distribution  of  books  that  no  party  which  has 
ever  obtained  power  in  the  civic  government  has 
dreamed,  in  its  most  economic  plans  for  reducing 
expenses,  of  refusing  to  the  trustees  of  the  Public 
Library  any  money  which  they  asked.  The  library, 
indeed,  may  be  called  the  most  popular  institution  in 
the  city,  though  its  demands  for  money  now  average 


276  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

a  hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year.  Tlie  library  was 
opened  to  the  public  in  1854,  in  a  small  schoolhouse 
in  Mason  Street,  with  a  collection  of  twelve  thousand 
volumes.  The  munificent  donations  of  Mr.  Bates,  of 
the  firm  of  Baring  Brothers  &  Co.,  led  to  Mr.  Tick- 
nor's  third  visit  to  Europe  in  1856.  He  was  absent 
fifteen  months,  establishing  agencies  for  the  library, 
buying  books,  and  aiding  its  interests  in  other  re- 
spects. He  was  cordially  welcomed  by  his  old  friends, 
and  ma.de  some  new  acquaintances. 

On  his  return  from  Europe  Mr.  Ticknor  was  for 
some  years  connected  with  the  Public  Library,  and 
on  the  death  of  Mr.  Everett  in  1863  he  was  elected 
President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  and  held  the 
position  for  a  year,  when  he  resigned.  Now,  when 
the  institution  has  outgrown  in  usefulness  the  most 
sanguine  expectations  of  its  founders,  every  citizen  of 
Boston  has  reason  to  hold  in  respect  the  memory  of 
George  Ticknor,  who  did  more  than  any  other  man 
to  give  it  that  popular  character  which  insures  its 
stability,  and  who  left  to  it  his  magnificent  library 
of  Spanish  books. 

Shortly  after  his  return  from  Europe  he  wrote  a 
letter,  full  of  good  sense,  to  Mr.  Justice  Curtis,  in 
which  he  gave  his  reasons  for  believing  that  a  civil 
war  in  this  country  would  please  the  governing  pow- 
ers in  Europe.  "  In  my  judgment,"  he  says,  "  when- 
ever the  fatal  hour  that  strikes  the  dissolution  of  our 
Union  comes,  those  who  stand  hy  it  longest  will  have 
the  least  sympathy  in  Europe^     He  thus  predicted 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  277 

what,  to  the  amazement  of  many  American  gentle- 
men who  were  great  lovers  of  England,  actually 
occurred  when  the  Rebellion  burst  forth.  The  sur- 
prise was  so  great  that  old  Federalists,  old  Democrats, 
Antislavery  men  who  had  been  accustomed  to  count 
on  the  sympathy  of  their  friends  in  Great  Britain, 
were  united  as  one  man  in  their  indignation  against 
the  governing  classes  of  England,  whether  liberal  or 
illiberal.  In  the  eastern,  middle,  and  northwestern 
States,  it  may  be  safely  said  that  there  were  few  cul- 
tivated or  uncultivated  men  who  did  not  feel  a  rage 
against  "the  mother-country,"  fiercer  than  that  which 
was  felt  in  1776  or  1812.  Fortunately  for  the  peace 
of  both  nations,  the  American  mind  in  such  matters 
is  ungifted  with  the  faculty  of  memory ;  and  after  the 
first  explosion  of  righteous  wrath  was  over,  the  en- 
mity gradually  subsided. 

During  the  four  years  preceding  the  Rebellion,  Mr. 
Ticknor  was  recognized  as  a  supporter  of  the  meas- 
ures of  compromise  designed  to  avert  it ;  after  it  had 
broken  out,  and  during  its  continuance,  he  belonged 
to  that  class  of  conservatives  who  opposed  almost 
all  the  daring  "  war  measures "  by  which  the  Con- 
federacy was  eventually  overthrown ;  and  while 
warmly  sympathizing  with  the  cause  of  the  nation 
and  giving  freely  of  his  means  to  sustain  it,  his  mind 
was  so  oppressed  by  the  technicalities  of  constitu- 
tional law,  that  he  wished  the  war  to  be  conducted  on 
principles  which  would  probably  have  insured  the 
triumph   of  the  Rebels,  had  they  been  carried  out. 


278  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

Mr.  Jefferson  Davis,  in  arms  against  the  Union  and 
the  Constitution,  and  reviling  the  "  Yankees  "  as  the 
scum  of  the  earth,  was  specially  disgusted  at  the  im- 
pudence of  the  Northerners  in  their  so-called  violation 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Many  intel- 
ligent and  patriotic  men  of  the  North  objected,  on  con- 
stitutional grounds,  to  the  measures  which  Mr.  Davis 
specially  dreaded. 

Meanwhile,  Mr.  Ticknor  was  engaged  in  a  biogra- 
phy of  Prescott  the  historian,  who  had  died  in 
January,  1859.  The  volume,  carefully  and  lovingly 
written,  was  published  in  1864,  when  the  writer  had 
reached  the  age  of  seventy-two.  For  forty  years  the 
biographer  and  the  subject  of  the  biography  had  been 
united  in  the  closest  bonds  of  friendship.  The  "  Life 
of  Prescott "  attained  an  immediate  popularity,  and 
it  still  holds  its  place  among  the  most  delightful  of 
literary  biographies. 

Mr.  Ticknor  survived  the  war,  and  all  the  measures 
of  reconstruction  which  followed  the  termination  of 
the  war,  preserving  to  the  last  his  interest  in  public 
affairs.  His  life-long  labor,  his  beloved  "  History  of 
Spanish  Literature,"  was  ever  on  his  table  for  correc- 
tions, alterations,  omissions,  or  additions.  His  physi- 
cal health  was  always  remarkably  good ;  and  when 
in  January,  1871,  he  died,  his  death  seemed  the  re- 
sult of  mere  bodily  decay,  as  his  mind  was  clear  to 
the  last.  Without  pain  he  quietly  withdrew  from  the 
world,  having  enjoyed  in  it  every  satisfaction  the 
world  could  give. 


GEORGE  TICKNOR.  279 

It  only  remains  to  be  said,  that  the  letters  and 
journals  of  Mr.  Ticknor  are  of  so  interesting  a  charac- 
ter, and  introduce  the  reader  to  so  many  men  and 
women  distinguished  by  rank,  fashion,  learning,  and 
genius,  without  requiring  him  to  move  from  his  own 
fireside,  that  they  cannot  but  obtain  a  wide  and  per- 
manent popularity.  As  a  biography,  the  work  is 
open  to  the  criticism  that  Mr.  Ticknor,  as  he  was,  is 
almost  submerged  in  his  copious  accounts  of  the  cele- 
brated people  he  knew.  Though  recognized  in  his 
native  city  as  quite  a  formidable  personage  in  him- 
self, we  continually  lose  sight  of  him  in  the  still  more 
formidable  personages  whom  it  was  his  good  fortune 
to  meet. 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

It  may  be  afl&rmed  that  those  American  readers  of 
the  works  of  Matthew  Arnold  who  have  diligently 
followed  him  from  his  first  to  his  latest  volume,  who 
have  most  keenly  felt  the  fascination  of  his  style  and 
the  limitations  of  his  character,  and  who  have  scrib- 
bled over  the  margins  of  his  pages  with  alternate 
notes  of  admiration  and  interrogation,  will  specially 
welcome  the  new  edition  of  his  writings  published  by 
the  Macmillans.  In  an  extended  consideration  of  his 
labors  much  might  be  said  in  his  praise  which  the 
nece'ssary  brevity  of  this  review  compels  us  to  omit ; 
and  our  simple  object  is  to  state  some  reasons  which 
account  for  the  fact  that  he  is  not  popular,  in  any 
large  sense  of  the  word,  either  on  this  or  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic. 

It  is  doubtless  to  be  supposed  that  Mr.  Arnold's 
estimate  of  our.  civilization  will  not  be  flattering  to 
our  national  vanity  or  national  pride.  A  writer  who 
has  repeatedly  told  his  own  countrymen  that  their 
higher  classes  are  "  materialized,"  their  middle  classes 
"  vulgarized,"  and  their  lower  classes  "  brutalized," 
cannot  be  expected  to  proclaim,  after  a  few  months' 
residence  in  this  country,  that  the  conduct,  politics. 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD.  281 

society,  science,  and  literature  of  the  United  States 
come  up  to  the  high  ideal  standards  which  he  is  accus- 
tomed to  apply  to  other  nations  as  well  as  to  his  own. 
It  may  be  said  that  the  general  characteristic  of 
Mr.  Arnold's  poetry  is  moral  and  intellectual  scepti- 
cism and  despondency ;  and  that  the  general  charac- 
teristic of  his  criticism  is  moral  and  intellectual 
superciliousness.  When  he  writes  in  verse  from  his 
inner  self,  from  his  "  heart  of  heart,"  he  moans ; 
when  he  writes  in  prose  he  is  prone  to  assume  the 
air  of  "  a  superior  being,"  condescending  even  to 
those  he  graciously  applauds.  When  a  man,  in  the 
expressive  phrase  of  Dickens's  Mr.  Wegg,  "  drops 
into  poetry,"  it  is  supposed  that  some  kindling  senti- 
ment prompts  him  to  choose  verse  as  the  most  appro- 
priate vehicle  for  his  outburst  of  thought  and  emotion. 
In  Mr.  Arnold's  case  this  process  is  reversed.  When 
he  is  out  of  spirits,  he  sings ;  when  he  feels  himself  a 
being  superior  to  his  contemporaries,  he  criticises. 
In  his  mood  of  dejection  he  embodies  his  feeling  in  a 
stanza  like  this,  taken  from  his  poem  on  "  The  Grand 
Chartreuse : "  — 

"  Wandering  between  two  worlds,  one  dead, 

The  other  powerless  to  be  bornj 
With  nowhere  yet  to  rest  my  head, 

Like  these,  on  earth  I  wait  forlorn. 
Their  faith,  my  tears,  the  world  deride  ; 
I  come  to  shed  them  at  their  side." 

Also,  when  in  a  milder  mood,  but  one  which  is  still 
haunted    by   spectres   of   a   melancholy   that   seems 


282  MATTHEW  AUNOLD. 

inborn,  and  to  lie  at  the  very  root  of  his  nature,  he 
declares, — 

"  Too  fast  we  live,  too  much  are  tried, 
Too  harassed  to  attain 
Wordsworth's  sweet  calm,  or  Goethe's  wide 
And  luminous  view  to  gain." 

It  may  be  said  that  Mr.  Arnold's  sorrowful  view  of 
li.fe  in  his  poems  is  characteristic  of  many  great  poets. 
Byron,  for  example,  is  fiercely  misanthropic  in  mat- 
ters of  human  concern,  where  Mr.  Arnold  is  merely 
gently  despondent  and  despairing.  But  Byron's  orig- 
inal, not  to  say  aboriginal,  energy  of  nature  is  so 
great,  that,  while  his  thoughts  tend  to  depress  the 
soul,  his  energy  stimulates  it.  "We  get  from  his 
poems  few  principles  on  which  a  rational  human 
being  would  think  of  basing  his  conduct ;  but  he 
inspires,  impels,  inflames  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
readers  who  have  no  sympathy  with  his  misanthropy. 
Mr.  Arnold  goes  deeper,  perhaps,  than  Byron  into  the 
causes  which  induce  many  thinkers  to  be  dejected 
in  surveying  the  phenomena  of  human  life,  but  he 
lacks  Byron's  immense  vigor.  A  comparative  feeble- 
ness of  constitution  prevents  him  from  giving  to  his 
thoughts  the  great  element  of  power.  This  is  said 
without  questioning  the  exquisiteness  of  much  of 
his  poetry,  and  the  delight  it  communicates  to 
many  cultivated  minds ;  but  its  effectiveness  on 
ordinary  readers  is  injured  by  the  general  melan- 
choly of  its  tone,  and  by  its  lack  of  impassioned 
imagination. 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD.  283 

One  cannot  speak  of  Matthew  Arnold  without 
thinking  of  his  father,  wliose  biography  by  the  late 
Dean  Stanley  made,  at  the  period  when  it  was  pub- 
lished, so  deep  an  impression.  It  stimulated  tlie 
reader  to  carry  liberal  and  generous  ideas  into  prac- 
tical work  for  the  good  of  mankind.  The  father  had 
the  great  quality  of  soul.  Everybody  felt  that  he  an- 
nounced no  principle  for  which  he  would  not  willingly 
have  died.  In  fact,  he  was  recognized  as  a  spiritual 
force ;  and  he  communicated  spiritual  life  because  he 
was  himself  all  alive.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that 
the  scholarship  of  the  son  is  far  richer  and  larger 
than  that  of  the  father ;  that  in  theology  he  has  ad- 
vanced to  conclusions  from  which  the  father  would 
have  recoiled ;  that  he  has  successfully  occupied  re- 
gions of  literature  which  the  father  barely  entered; 
and  that  even  in  matters  of  education,  especially  the 
education  of  the  middle  classes,  the  son  is  far  beyond 
the  father  in  clear  ideas  and  methods  of  culture ;  yet 
the  son,  with  all  his  intelligence  and  acquired  knowl- 
edge, has  not  the  father's  magical  gift.  He  can  in- 
form, but  he  cannot  inspire  and  invigorate  :  the  soul 
is  wanting.  That  wonderful  passage  of  experience 
and  intelligence  into  will,  by  which  high  reason,  or 
even  ordinary  good  sense,  impels  reasonable  minds  to 
instant  action,  is  lacking  in  the  most  radical  of  Mat- 
thew Arnold's  teachings  and  preachings.  We  agree 
or  disagree  with  him,  as  we  read ;  but  if  we  agree, 
we  receive  from  him  no  impulse  to  conform  our  con- 
duct to  his  ideas.    It  would  be  difficult  to  detect 


284  MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

among  those  who  most  admire  his  writings  a  single 
individual  who  has  been  led  to  act  nobly  by  any  in- 
spiration derived  directly  from  his  numerous  books. 
And  yet  most  of  these  books  are  specially  marked 
by  the  emphasis  laid  on  righteousness,  and  on  self- 
renunciation  as  the  fruit  of  righteousness. 

The  explanation  of  this  fact  is  not  far  to  seek. 
The  expansion  of  his  intelligence  has  been  purchased 
at  the  expense  of  weakening  his  will.  It  cannot  be 
said  that  he  is  destitute  of  the  peculiarities  and  in- 
firmities of  individuality,  however  much  he  may  be 
lacking  in  its  powers ;  for  no  modern  writer  of  equal 
reputation  and  genius  is  so  full  of  idiosyncrasies  and 
tastes  and  distastes,  especially  the  latter.  But  the 
heart  of  his  being  is  not  thoroughly  sound  and  strong 
Something  languid,  discontented,  dissatisfied, —  some- 
thing which  makes  the  impression  of  a  certain  subtle, 
feline  resentment  at  the  non-acknowledgment  of  his 
own  claims  to  eminence,  —  is  observable  in  the  inmost 
recesses  of  his  moral  nature.  A  compassionate  con- 
tempt for  other  minds  appears  to  be  a  necessary 
condition  of  any  self-satisfaction  he  may  find  in  con- 
templating his  own-  This  ungracious  quality  too 
often  takes  the  form  of  a  condescension,  which  exas- 
perates alike  those  who  agree  and  those  who  disagree 
with  him  in  matters  of  literary,  political,  and  theolog- 
ical discussion.  Now,  the  Almighty  may  very  properly 
condescend  to  the  human  beings  he  has  created ;  but 
he  is  the  only  being  who  has  a  right  to  condescend, — 
except,  it  seems,  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold ;  and  the  latter 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD.  285 

uses  the  privilege  at  times  in  a  fashion  which  makes 
us  regret  that  the  exception  was  made  in  his  favor. 
It  may  be  affirmed  that  you  may  do  all  in  your  power 
to  injure  a  fellow-creature,  even  if  you  go  to  the  ex- 
tent of  robbing,  torturing,  and  enslaving  him ;  he 
may  sullenly  bear  these  injuries,  —  but  beware  of 
condescending  to  him !  No  man  can  descend  so  low 
as  not  acutely  to  feel  this  last  insult  to  what  is 
immortal  in  him,  —  his  personality. 

It  is  difficult  to  illustrate  Mr.  Arnold's  superb 
superciliousness  except  by  examples  drawn  from  that 
department  of  life  where  superciliousness  reigns 
supreme,  —  namely,  fashionable  society.  Thus  it  is 
reported  that  two  high-bred  women,  —  one  from  New 
York,  the  other  from  Boston,  —  happened  to  meet 
in  what  is  ironically  called  a  "  social "  circle.  Both 
were  rich  and  accomplished,  and  both  claimed  to  have 
ancestors.  Boston,  in  the  course  of  a  little  conversa- 
tion between  the  two,  alluded,  in  the  most  seemingly 
unpretentious  way,  to  the  trivial  circumstance  that 
her  ancestors  came  over  in  the  "  Mayflower."  "  Ah ! " 
replied  New  York,  with  a  little  lift  of  her  eyebrows 
expressive  of  innocent  surprise,  "  I  did  not  know  be- 
fore that  the  '  Mayflower '  brought  over  any  steerage 
passengers." 

"  And  the  imperial  Yorkist  passed  on, 
In  matron  meditation,  Boston  free." 

The  retort  certainly  was  not  delicate ;   but  still  in 
what  Bacon  calls  the  "  great  ship  of  Time  "  no  one  is 


286  MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

so  careful  to  distinguish  between  cabin  and  steerage 
passengers  as  Mr.  Arnold.  His  exacting  taste  de- 
mands the  "  culture "  of  the  few  highly  educated 
people  who  occupy  the  state-rooms,  though  genius 
and  saintliness  may  be  among  the  motley  assemblage 
in  the  steerage.  The  slightest  taint  of  vulgarity  re- 
pels him,  as  though  it  were  an  inexpiable  sin.  All 
his  readers  must  remember  his  mischievous  delight  in 
quoting,  in  essay  after  essay,  a  verse  of  a  hymn, 
which  he  eventually  robs  of  the  capital  letter  begin- 
ning each  line,  and  which  he  declares  expresses  the 
average  piety  of  a  Protestant  devotee  of  the  middle 
class :  — 

"  My  Jesus  to  know,  and  feel  his  blood  flow, 
'T  is  life  everlasting,  't  is  Heaven  below." 

Now,  that  such  doggerel  as  this  is  exceptional  in 
all  Orthodox  Congregational  hymn-books  he  must 
know  very  well ;  but  it  serves  his  turn  in  his  effort  to 
show  the  vulgarity  which  steals  into  the  worship  of 
dissenting  Christians.  He  is  never  tired  of  thrusting 
it  into  tlieir  faces  as  a  proof  that  they  cannot  adore 
their  Redeemer  without  shocking  every  principle  of 
good  taste,  and  of  ironically  recommending  to  them  a 
small  dose  of  "  literature  "  to  sweeten  and  refine  the 
bald  announcement  of  their  "dogma."  If  uneducated 
or  imperfectly  educated  Protestant  saints  ever  swear, 
it  must  be  when  they  read  such  polite  exhortations 
for  them  to  sing  and  pray  in  Oxford  English ;  and 
they   might   be   justified  in   swearing   by  assuming 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD.  287 

that,  considering  the  provocation,  profanity  in  some 
emergencies  becomes  a  religious  exercise. 

No  injustice  is  done  to  Mr.  Arnold  in  saying  that 
condescension  in  the  form  of  superciliousness  more  or 
less  infects  his  ablest  writings.  He  is  very  careful  to 
abstain  from  every  kind  of  that  passionate  invective, 
of  that  righteous  wrath,  in  which  vehement  minds  are 
apt  to  indulge  when  their  souls  are  excited  by  the 
contemplation  of  some  great  wrong;  there  is  hardly 
a  trace  in  his  works  of  the  noble  rage  so  dominant  in 
Milton,  Chatham,  or  Burke ;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  is  no  recent  English  writer  who  excels  or  even 
equals  him  in  the  exquisitely  polished  poison  with 
which  he  deliberately  tips  the  light  and  shining  arrows 
of  his  sarcasm.  The  wounds  he  inflicts  may  seem  to 
be  a  mere  scratch  on  the  surface ;  but  they  fester, 
they  eat  into  the  flesh,  which  they  hardly  seem  to 
touch ;  and  the  dull  and  prolonged  pain  they  cause  is 
as  hard  to  bear  as  the  sting  of  a  scorpion  or  the  bite 
of  a  centipede.  It  is  said  that  curates  of  the  Church 
of  England  have  a  not  unnatural  desire  to  become 
bishops ;  but  what  curates  would  not  rather  prefer  to 
remain  curates  than  to  occupy  the  positions  of  the 
Bishops  of  Winchester  and  Gloucester,  after  they  had 
been  subjected  to  Matthew  Arnold's  ironical  compli- 
ments in  "  Literature  and  Dogma "  ?  These  dig- 
nitaries of  the  Church  had,  in  Convocation,  declared 
their  intention  "to  do  something  for  the  honor  of 
Our  Lord's  Godhead,"  and  to  mark  their  sense  of  that 
"  infinite  separation  for  time  and  eternity  which  is 


288  MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

involved  in  rejecting  the  Godhead  of  the  Eternal 
Son."  Throughout  the  volume,  Arnold  seizes  every 
opportunity  to  bring  in  that  unfortunate  phrase,  "  to 
do  something,"  until  the  poor  bishops  are  practically 
stretched  on  the  rack  of  an  intellectual  inquisition 
which  is  as  cruel  as  the  old  Spanish  model  of  bodily 
torment.  How  studiously  polite,  how  affectedly  ur- 
bane, how  inexpressibly  bland,  is  the  manner  of  the 
critic  as  he  sees  his  victims  writhe  under  the  applica- 
tion of  his  gilded  thumb-screws.  The  first  turn  and 
twist  of  the  engines  of  torture  might  not  inflict  much 
pain ;  but  it  is  their  continual  repetition  which  wounds. 
The  poor  creatures,  when  he  makes  a  point  against 
their  special  dogma,  are,  as  it  were,  compassionately 
urged  "  to  do  something "  for  "  the  Godhead  of  the 
Eternal  Son."  Their  pious  anxiety  to  begin  a  work 
which,  it  would  appear,  they  have  long  neglected,  and 
their  confidence  in  their  power  "  to  do  something " 
when  their  sacerdotal  functions  are  properly  exercised, 
are  pressed  home  on  the  bishops  with  a  witty  relent- 
lessness  that  borders  on  malice;  while  at  the  same 
time  the  critic  is  employed  in  an  attempt  to  under- 
mine their  whole  system  of  theology,  and  does  all  he 
can  to  make  them  ridiculous  in  the  eyes  of  the  world. 
It  is  hardly  possible  to  inflict  acute  pain  in  a  more 
seemingly  gentle  way.  And  then,  throughout  the  dis- 
cussion, the  reader  who  reads  between  tlie  lines  is 
aware  that  substantial  injustice  is  done  to  the  bishops. 
He  may  take  pleasure  in  seeing  how  a  master  in  the 
rhetorical  art  can,  to  all  appearance,  be  victorious 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD.  289 

over  able  adversaries  by  insisting  on  holding  them  to 
an  unlucky  phrase  whieh  has  slipped  from  them  in 
an  unguarded  moment ;  yet  the  victory  is  still  not 
one  of  reason,  but  of  wit.  At  least,  it  has  none  of  the 
"  sweet  reasonableness  "  which  it  is  the  object  of  the 
book  to  enforce. 

A  critic  who  does  not  hesitate  to  satirize  men  high 
in  the  Established  Church,  as  well  as  persons  low  in 
dissenting  congregations,  can  hardly  be  expected  to 
deal  genially  with  contemporary  men  of  letters.  When 
he  is  "  down  among  the  dead  men,"  he  is  sufficiently 
complimentary ;  but  how  few  living  authors  are  in- 
debted to  him  for  a  friendly  word !  His  essays  "  On 
Translating  Homer"  provoked  combats  nearly  as 
fierce  as  those  tlic  great  epic  poet  celebrates.  He 
contrived  to  excite  the  enmity  of  living  translators  of 
Homer  by  his  exasperating  superciliousness  in  sum- 
ming up  their  demerits.  Homer,  says  Mr.  Arnold, 
has  four  distinctive  qualities,  which  his  translator 
should  keep  constantly  in  mind,  or  he  will  fail  in 
rendering  him  adequately.  Homer  is,  first,  eminently 
rapid ;  secondly,  he  is  eminently  plain  and  direct,  both 
in  the  evolution  of  his  thought  and  in  the  expression 
of  it ;  thirdly,  he  is  eminently  plain  and  direct  in  the 
substance  of  his  thought,  —  that  is,  in  his  matter  and 
ideas ;  and,  finally,  he  is  eminently  noble.  From 
Chapman  to  Wright,  every  translator  is  found  to  be 
deficient  in  one  or  more  of  these  inexorable  con- 
ditions. Living  translators  of  Homer  were  specially 
angry  at  the  cool  way  in  which  Mr.  Arnold  applied 

19 


290  MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

his  tests,  and  among  them  all  none  was  more  enraged 
than  F.  W.  Newman.  He  could  not  endure  the  pity- 
ing but  penetrating  force  of  Arnold's  criticism,  or  the 
imperturbable  calm  of  his  manner  of  stating  it.  In- 
vective the  good  man  might  have  borne  with  forti- 
tude; but  that  this  comparative  stripling  in  Greek 
literature  should  assume  toward  such  a  veteran  as 
himself  the  air  of  a  superior  being,  was  too  much  for 
his  philosophy.  He  was  angry,  and,  what  is  more 
indiscreet,  he  showed  that  he  was  angry  ;  and  this 
gave  his  antagonist  an  opportunity  to  overwhelm  liim 
anew  with  his  bland  and  sedate  condescension.  Other 
translators  had  their  own  wrongs  to  avenge,  and  an 
exciting  controversy  was  the  result,  in  which  nobody 
kept  his  temper  except  the  person  who  had  caused 
the  disturbance.  In  one  of  the  chapters  "  On  Trans- 
lating Homer "  Mr.  Arnold  quotes  a  passage  from 
Goethe,  which  must  be  new  even  to  many  scholars 
who  pride  themselves  on  their  familiarity  with  the 
writings  of  the  great  German.  "From  Homer  and 
Polygnotus,"  says  Goethe,  "  I  every  day  learn  more 
and  more  clearly  that  in  our  life  here  above-ground 
we  have,  properly  speaking,  to  enact  Hell."  That 
Matthew  Arnold  had  learned  the  same  lesson  from 
Homer  and  Polygnotus  must  have  been  the  settled 
conviction  of  most  of  the  translators  he  offended. 

But  then  the  keen  critic  had  laid  himself  open  to 
criticism.  He  illustrated  his  own  principles  of  trans- 
lation by  rendering  into  English  hexameters  a  passage 
or  two  from  the  Iliad.     His  critics  made  themselves 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD.  291 

merry  over  his  versions,  or  perversions,  of  the  origi- 
nal, lie  watched  warily  for  an  opportunity  to  retort, 
and  he  found  it  in  the  preface  to  his  "  Essays  in  Crit- 
icism." S})eaking  of  himself  as  a  Professor,  he  mod- 
estly states  that  he  is  shy  of  claiming  the  title,  because 
he  shares  it  with  so  many  quacks  and  jugglers,  like 
Professor  Pepper,  Professor  Anderson,  and  the  like. 
He  cannot,  he  says,  compete,  merely  as  Professor  of 
Poetry  in  the  University  of  Oxford,  with  such  shining 
lights  as  these.  "  I,"  he  adds,  "  have  my  humble 
place  in  a  hierarchy  whose  seat  is  on  earth  ;  and  I 
serve  under  an  illustrious  Chancellor  who  translates 
Homer,  and  who  calls  his  Professor's  leaning  toward 
hexameters  '  a  pestilent  heresy.'  Nevertheless,  that 
cannot  keep  me  from  admiring  the  performance  of 
my  severe  chief.  I  admire  its  freshness,  its  manli- 
ness, its  simplicity  ;  although,  perhaps,  if  one  looks 
for  the  charm  of  Homer,  for  his  play  of  divine  light, 
Professor  Pepper  must  go  on,  I  cannot."  The  cool 
insolence  of  this  deadly  thrust  is  incoraparably  good, 
considered  as  satire.  The  Earl  of  Derby  had  sneered 
at  Arnold's  hexameters,  and  had  translated  Homer. 
Arnold  patronizes  his  chief  by  admitting  the  merits 
of  his  version  ;  but  he  indicates,  in  a  light,  fleering 
way,  that  in  translating  the  first  of  the  great  poets  of 
the  world  he  has  made  only  one  slight  mistake,  —  the 
mistake  of  leaving  out  all  the  poetry.  The  truth  of 
the  criticism  only  made  it  the  more  exasperating. 
The  allusion  to  Professor  Pepper  at  the  end  must 
have  stung  the  arrogant  Earl  to  the  quick.     At  any 


292  MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

rate,  he  was  careful,  we  think,  to  indulge  in  no  more 
flings  at  his  Professor's  hexameters. 

But  a  more  provoking  form  of  Mr.  Arnold's  fine 
scorn  of  what  shocks  his  fastidious  taste  or  offends 
his  cherished  opinions  is  his  habit  of  adopting  a  mode 
of  attack  which  he  disclaims  so  far  as  he  is  himself 
concerned,  but  which  is  most  in  vogue  among  those 
writers  who  sympathize  with  his  adversary's  method 
of  conducting  the  warfare  of  words.  Thus,  Charles 
Sumner  never  used  profane  language  as  a  proper  ex- 
pression of  his  own  angry  feelings ;  but  he  had  no 
objection  to  quoting  the  profanity  of  brother  Senators, 
whose  passions  had  been  aroused  by  his  opposition  to 
their  opinions.  Readers  of  Wordsworth,  when  they 
come  upon  the  first  portion  of  one  of  his  humane  max- 
ims, must  have  wondered  how  he  could  escape  falling 
into  the  fault  he  palpably  condemned.  The  passage 
begins  thus  :  — 

*'  He  who  feels  contempt 
For  any  living  thing  —  " 

How,  the  reader  asks,  can  the  poet  avoid  expressing 
something  like  contempt  for  the  person  who  is  sup- 
posed to  experience  it  ?  But  Wordsworth  glides  over 
the  difficulty  with  perfect  ease,  as  is  seen  by  his 
conclusion :  — 

"  He  who  feels  contempt 
For  any  living  thing,  has  faculties 
IVliich  he  has  never  used." 

In  a  similar  way,  though  for  a  different  and  less 
humane  purpose,  Mr.  Arnold  expresses  his  dislike  of 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD.  293 

tlic  style  of  Mr.  Kinglake,  as  shown  in  the  latter's 
brilliant  history  of  "  The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea." 
He  calls  it  "  the  Corinthian  style,"  detests  it  utterly, 
as  having  "  the  glitter  of  the  East  with  the  hardness 
of  the  West ; "  and  ends  by  quoting  an  unfavorable 
criticism  of  it  by  somebody  whom  he  styles  "  a  brother 
Corinthian,"  and  who  had,  it  seems,  declared  that  Mr. 
Kinglake  combined  "  the  passion  for  tinsel  of  a  sen- 
suous Jqw  with  the  savage  spleen  of  a  dyspeptic 
Englishman."  But  Mr.  Arnold  hastens  to  add :  "  I 
do  not  say  this  of  Mr.  Kinglake's  style ;  I  am  very 
far  from  saying  it.  To  say  it,  is  to  fall  into  just  that 
hard,  brassy,  overstretched  style  which  Mr.  Kinglake 
himself  employs  so  far  too  much,  and  which  I,  for  my 
part,  reprobate.  But  when  a  brother  Corinthian  of 
Mr.  Kinglake  says  it,  I  feel  what  he  means."  When  Mr. 
Kinglake  read  this  criticism,  must  he  not  have  felt 
that  the  "brother  Corinthian  "  who  made  the  somewhat 
brutal  assault  on  his  manner  of  writing  was  far  more 
merciful  than  the  fastidious  critic  w^ho  quoted  it  ? 

It  would  be  needless  to  select  other  passages  from 
Mr.  Arnold's  books  in  proof  that  his  taste  is  so  re- 
fined that  he  finds  little  to  commend  in  his  contem- 
poraries. Bishop  Colenso  is  the  favorite  "  Pontiff  of 
the  Philistines ; "  Macaulay  is  "  the  Apostle  of  the 
Philistines,"  and  his  Roman  Ballads  "  pinchbeck." 
He  is  not  daunted  even  by  such  despots  as  Ruskin 
and  Carlyle,  but  draws  a  marked  line  of  distinction 
between  their  genius  and  intelligence.  Their  defi- 
ciency in  the  latter  quality  seems  to  grieve  him  much. 


294  MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

Thackeray  and  George  Eliot  he  does  not  even  men- 
tion; and  of  Dickens  he  said  nothing  good  during 
the  great  romancer's  life,  classing  "  Little  Dorrit " 
among  Magnall's  Questions,  Joyce's  Scientific  Dia- 
logues, and  Beecher's  Sermons  in  his  catalogue  of 
the  library  of  an  average  British  Philistine.  After 
Dickens's  death,  for  a  purpose  of  his  own,  he  quoted 
and  praised  those  portions  of  "  David  Copperfield " 
which  contained  a  satire  on  middle-class  religion  and 
middle-class  education.  It  was  said  of  a  lawyer,  emi- 
nent for  his  learning  and  his  ability,  and  the  singular 
absence  of  passion  in  his  arguments,  that  he  could 
not  speak  fifteen  minutes  before  a  jury  without  run- 
ning the  risk  of  not  only  losing  his  case,  but  of  mak- 
ing every  man  of  the  twelve  his  personal  enemy. 
The  secret  of  his  unpopularity  was  that  he  spoke 
down  to  court  and  jury  from  an  inaccessible  height  of 
wisdom  which  they  could  not  hope  to  reach,  but  from 
which  he  for  tlie  time  descended,  in  such  a  way  as 
to  give  them  the  impression  that  he  cowdcsccnded. 
"  Some  men,"  said  Mr.  Choate,  "  w*e  dislike  for  cause  ; 
others,  peremptorily."  He  must  have  meant  by  the 
latter  the  men  who  condescend. 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  we  have  apparently  under- 
valued the  real  power  and  influence  of  Mr.  Arnold  in 
thus  frankly  stating  certain  defects  and  limitations  in 
his  cliaracter  which  have  not  been  without  their  effect 
in  giving  an  undue  bias  to  his  intellect.  There  is  a 
class  of  educated  readers  in  England  and  the  United 
States  who,  not  being  writers,  are   delighted   with 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD.  295 

criticisms  which  are  really  funeral  services  over  the 
souls  of  would-be  writers  who  fail  to  come  up  to  ideal 
standards  of  excellence.  How  many  men  and  women, 
who  might  eventually  have  become  good  writers,  are 
killed  at  the  start  by  harsh  judgments,  it  is  hard  to 
determine.  Byron  expresses  his  astonishment  at  the 
success  of  such  critical  homicides.     He  says,  — 

"  Strange  that  the  soul,  that  very  fiery  particle, 
Should,  let  itself  be  snuffed  out  by  an  article." 

But  it  is  often  snuffed  out,  to  the  great  satisfaction 
of  the  class  of  readers  we  have  referred  to,  who  would 
probably  meet  a  similar  fate  if  they  ventured  to  ap- 
pear in  print.  Their  discretion  is  rewarded  by  the 
tranquil  enjoyment  they  experience  in  witnessing  the 
death-bed  agonies  of  their  more  ambitious  friends  and 
neighbors,  who,  conquering  the  natural  fear  which 
the  austere  critics  are  so  calculated  to  excite,  have 
ignominiously  fallen  in  their  desperate  attempt  to  rise. 
This  class  of  readers,  who  have  generally  "  gone 
through  college  "  without  having  college  go  through 
them,  are  prone  to  pride  themselves  on  their  culture, 
and  resent  the  most  diffident  criticisms  regarding  the 
perfection  of  their  idol,  Matthew  Arnold,  whom  they 
look  up  to  as  the  apostle  of  culture.  Now,  the  im- 
portance of  culture  cannot  be  overstated  ;  but  as  has 
been .  pleasantly  remarked,  the  maxim  is  in  danger  of 
being  so  perverted  as  to  end  practically  "  in  the  cul- 
ture of  self-importance."  This  hateful  perversion  of 
the  true  creed  is  observable  in  the  behavior  of  literary 


296  MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

fops  and  coxcombs  who  imitate  the  master,  as  other 
fops  and  coxcombs  vainly  try  to  imitate,  in  the  inter- 
course of  society,  the  self-centred,  refined  insolence  of 
manner  and  irreproachable  costume  of  the  acknowl- 
edged leaders  of  fashion.  Mr.  Arnold  is  as  immeas- 
urably beyond  such  affectations  in  literature  as  he  is 
in  dress.  It  seems  cruel  to  make  him  in  the  least 
degree  responsible  for  a  shallow  superciliousness  of 
tone  in  polite  literary  circles,  which  a  few  sentences 
in  his  writings  may  still  have  had  some  influence  in 
producing.  His  leading  maxim  is  that  "  conduct," 
the  cultivation  of  righteousness,  properly  occupies 
three-fourths  of  human  life  ;  "  culture  "  is  the  remain- 
ing fraction ;  and  he  emphasizes  this  because  he 
believes  that  it  has  been  unduly  disregarded,  and  is, 
moreover,  absolutely  necessary  for  the  right  regula- 
tion of  conduct.  What  may  be  called  his  vital  super- 
ciliousness is  a  quality  which  has  its  roots  deep  down 
in  his  intellectual  and  moral  character,  and  though  a 
serious  defect,  is  entirely  different  from  the  sham 
substitute,  which  consists  in  despising  what  one  can- 
not emulate,  and  in  sneering  at  well-intended  efforts 
for  excellence  which  one  has  never  had  the  nerve 
even  to  attempt. 

If  vre  examine  carefully  the  earlier  prose  essays  of 
Mr.  Arnold,  we  shall  find  that  his  method  of  assail- 
ing English  Philistinism  was  by  a  sudden,  a  violent 
change  of  the  point  of  view  in  his  way  of  looking  at 
things  specially  repugnant  to  the  English  mind.  In 
his    dissertations    on   "  The    Function  of    Criticism 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD.  297 

at  the  Present  Time,"  and  "  The  Literary  Influence 
of  Academies,"  he  opened  a  lively  campaign  at 
everything  insular  and  ]:)rovincial  in  English  habits  of 
tliought,  and  showed  no  toleration  for  what  he  con- 
sidered the  brag  and  bluster  of  English  political  and 
literary  conceit.  He  was  necessarily  one-sided  ;  but  he 
made  narrowness  an  agent  to  promote  comprehensive- 
ness. Desiring  to  get  the  English  mind  "  out  of  its 
ruts,"  he  urged  English  thinkers  to  include  in  their 
confident  generalizations  a  number  of  facts  and  ideas 
which  they  had  hitherto  excluded;  and  these  neglected 
facts  and  ideas  he  exaggerated  out  of  their  true  rela^ 
tions,  in  order  to  force  them  on  public  attention.  He 
lacked,  as  we  have  said,  the  kindling,  magnetic  power 
which  springs  from  original  energy  of  nature  ;  but  he 
possessed,  in  a  striking  degree,  the  minor  quality  of 
suggestivencss.  He  had  light  in  abundance,  though 
he  was  wanting  in  the  heat  which  ordinarily  accompa- 
nies light.  His  suggestivencss  made  him  command 
the  attention  of  many  thinkers  who,  like  Emerson, 
believe  that  the  best  benefit  we  receive  from  other 
minds  is  not  so  much  instruction  as  "  provocation." 

In  his  essay  on  the  "  Function  of  Criticism,"  Mr. 
Arnold  takes  the  ground  that  the  critic,  earnest  to  ac- 
quire the  best  that  is  thought  and  known  in  the  world 
and  to  see  all  things  as  they  really  are,  should  avoid 
direct  contact  with  practical  life,  and  decline  to  ap- 
ply his  advanced  ideas  to  existing  facts.  Reformers 
naturally  resented  the  principle  thus  confidently  an- 
nounced, because  they  knew  by  experience  that  it  was 


298  MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

impossible  to  prevent  ideas  from  coming  into  conflict 
with  current  abuses  in  Church  and  State.  Thus  M. 
Kenan  said,  in  substance,  to  the  Emperor  Napoleon 
the  Third :  "  Allow  us  thinkers  and  scholars  to  think 
and  investigate  freely,  and  communicate  the  results 
of  our  thinking  and  research  to  the  few  other  scholars 
who  care  for  the  things  of  the  mind,  and  we  will  not 
object,  with  our  impertinent  opposition,  to  anything 
you  may  do  with  the  uneducated  and  prejudiced  mil- 
lions of  France.  We  do  not  address  them  at  all." 
Well,  the  eventual  result  was  Kenan's  "  Life  of  Jesus," 
which  became  such  an  element  of  disturbance  in  the 
whole  Imperial  system  of  government,  that  any  alcove 
in  a  large  public  library  might  be  packed  full  of  books 
and  pamphlets  which  this  truly  incendiary  volume 
called  fortli  from  all  classes  of  the  French  population, 
clerical  and  political.  Mr.  Arnold,  as  an  English- 
man, could  not  expect  to  rival  M.  Kenan  in  creating  a 
similar  outburst  of  the  public  mind  by  such  a  volume 
as  "  Saint  Paul  and  Protestantism,"  or  "  Literature 
and  Dogma ; "  but  everything  that  could  be  done  by 
the  audacities  of  theological  thinking,  aimed  directly 
at  the  cherished  tenets  of  all  English  churches  and 
sects  that  pretended  to  orthodoxy,  was  done  by  Mr. 
Arnold  in  these  two  heretical  books.  He  fondly 
thought,  like  Kenan,  that  he  could  keep  at  a  distance 
from  the  smoke  and  dust  of  a  combat  that  his  own 
writings  tended  to  provoke.  Such  men  may  flatter 
themselves  that  they  are  addressing  thinkers  alone, 
when  they  are  really  rousing  mobs.     One  is  reminded 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD.  299 

of  the  intelligent  contraband  who  during  our  Civil 
War  entertained  an  audience  in  Dedham,  Massachu- 
setts, with  an  account  of  a  furious  conflict  of  Federals 
and  Rebels  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac.  "  But," 
asked  a  critical  auditor  of  his  flaming  narrative, 
"  wliere  were  you  when  the  battle  was  raging  ? " 
"  Oh !  I  was  back  among  the  baggage."  "  But  how 
far  were  you  from  the  bullets  and  the  cannon-balls  ?  " 
"  Well,"  was  the  instant  reply,  "  not  so  far  as  Ded^ 
ham  ! "  Probably  the  critic  was  a  thouglitful  Abo- 
litionist, who,  discontented  with  the  avowed  objects 
of  the  war,  concluded  to  stay  at  home  until  Eman- 
cipation was  proclaimed ;  but  he  doubtless  was  soon 
swept  into  the  crowd  of  volunteers,  conscripts, 
colonels,  and  brigadier-generals  that  reinforced  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac.  He  had,  like  Renan  and 
Arnold,  intended  to  judge  dispassionately  of  battles 
from  a  discreet  and  distant  point  of  view,  but  was 
whirled  into  the  midst  of  the  contest  by  a  fate  he 
could  not  withstand. 

The  prose  of  Mr.  Arnold,  when  he  is  in  his  best 
mood,  almost  realizes  his  ideal  of  what  he  calls  the 
Attic  style,  having  its  "  warm  glow,  blithe  movement, 
and  soft  pliancy  of  life."  Take  such  an  essay  as  that 
on  "  Religious  Sentiment,"  and  it  seems,  as  we  read, 
that  it  cannot  be  improved.  In  some  of  his  theological 
and  political  discussions  his  style,  it  must  be  confessed, 
loses  much  of  its  charm.  It  is  important,  however, 
to  discriminate  between  listening  to  Mr.  Arnold  and 
reading  him.     It  is  well  known  that  some  of  the  ablest 


300  MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

Englishmen  scandalously  neglect  the  elementary  rules 
of  elocution.  In  the  United  States  almost  every  per- 
son, from  the  farmer  who  speaks  in  a  town-meeting 
to  the  accomplished  orator  who  addresses  the  Senate 
of  the  country,  considers  that  the  second  part  of  his 
sentence  should  be  as  audible  as  the  first.  So  far  as 
we  have  heard  eminent  English  speakers  who  have 
addressed  American  audiences,  we  have  been  surprised 
at  the  difference  between  the  effect  produced  by  what 
they  speak  and  the  effect  produced  by  what  they  write. 
In  Mr.  Arnold's  case,  we  remember  a  singular  illustra- 
tion of  this  general  fact.  One  of  his  masterpieces  of 
compact  criticism  is  certainly  his  lecture  on  Heine. 
An  accomplished  professor  of  literature  in  one  of  our 
best  colleges  heard  it  delivered  at  Oxford,  and  came 
home  fully  impressed  with  the  belief  that  Mr.  Arnold 
was  an  overrated  man.  When  published  as  an  article 
in  a  magazine  it  attracted  the  notice  of  Mr.  Emerson, 
who  was  vehement  in  its  praise,  and  asked  every  per- 
son he  met  why  there  were  no  such  critics  in  America. 
Even  Carlyle  heard  of  it,  and  had  to  read  it.  He  was 
of  course  enraged,  for  he  was  accused  of  mistaking 
the  main  current  of  Gerpian  literature  after  Goethe. 
"  Have  you  heard,"  he  growled  to  an  American  friend, 
"  of  poor  Matt  Arnold  ?  What  creature  do  you  think 
he  has  selected  as  the  writer  who  has  continued,  since 
Goethe,  the  main  current  of  German  literature  ?  Why 
it  is  that  PIG,  Heine !  " 

In  coming  to  the   consideration   of   Mr.   Arnold's 
theological  writings,  one  is  impressed,  and  sometimes 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD.  301 

oppressed,  by  his  theological  learning  and  his  skill  in 
coolly  reversing  all  the  standards  of  popular  belief ; 
but  he  has  not  the  first  qualification  of  a  religious  re- 
former on  a  large  scale,  for  though  a  keen  and  well- 
equipped  critic  of  theological  dogmas,  he  is  not  a  man 
of  religious  genius.  The  exaltation  of  soul,  the  fer- 
vor, the  rapture,  the  ecstasy  of  those  great  natures 
who  have  vitally  experienced  new  vievrs  of  religion, 
and  verified  them  by  the  facts  of  their  own  conscious- 
ness, are  entirely  absent  from  his  cool  statements  of 
revolutionary  opinions.  Paul's  Epistles  are  considered 
the  bulwarks  of  orthodoxy  ;  but  Mr.  Arnold  attempts 
to  prove  that  the  doctrines  derived  from  them  are 
gross  misinterpretations  of  the  Apostle's  meaning. 
In  "  Literature  and  Dogma "  he  defends  the  strange 
hypothesis  that  the  God  revealed  in  the  Old  Testament 
is  not  a  personal  God,  but  only  the  "  Eternal,  not  our- 
selves, that  [and  not  who]  makes  for  righteousness." 
The  almost  endless  succession  of  texts  he  quotes  in 
order  to  sustain  his  view  of  Israel's  God  as  an  eternal 
It,  is  calculated  to  make  Jew  and  Christian  alike  tired 
of  the  very  name  of  Righteousness.  The  old  Puritans 
called  good  works  not  the  offspring  of  Divine  Grace 
the  "  rag  of  righteousness."  One  thinks,  in  reading 
the  book,  of  the  honest  Hibernian,  who  in  celebrating 
the  superiority  of  the  United  States  to  Great  Britain 
as  a  residence  for  a  workingman,  told  exultingly  to  a 
fellow-countryman  that  when  he  first  came  over  to 
this  blessed  land  he  had  n't  a  rag  to  his  back,  and  now, 
he  exclaimed, "  I  'm  kivered  with  'em !  "    Certainly  the 


302  MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

readers  of  "  Literature  and  Dogma "  must  feel  that 
at  the  end  they  are  covered  with  "  the  rags  of  right- 
eousness." The  special  point  he  makes  is  that  the 
language  of  the  Bible  is  "  fluid,  passing,  and  literary, 
not  rigid,  fixed,  and  scientific  ; "  and  this,  the  first 
step  toward  a  right  understanding  of  the  Bible,  de- 
mands culture  in  the  person  who  takes  it.  By  the 
application  of  this  principle  he  gives  a  new  inter- 
pretation to  the  texts  on  which  the  doctrines  of  all 
orthodox  churches  and  sects  are  based ;  and  his  inter- 
pretation, if  accepted,  demolishes  the  doctrines.  As 
long  ago  as  1838  Mr.  Emerson,  in  his  celebrated  ad- 
dress to  the  Cambridge  divinity  students,  announced 
Mr.  Arnold's  leading  idea  with  more  condensed  vigor, 
in  speaking  of  the  theological  misinterpretations  of 
the  words  of  Jesus.  "  The  idioms  of  his  language," 
he  said,  "  and  the  figures  of  his  rhetoric  have  usurped 
the  place  of  his  truth ;  and  churches  are  not  built  on 
his  principles,  but  on  his  tropes."  The  remarkable 
thing  to  be  noted  in  Mr.  Arnold's  work  is  the  confi- 
dence he  seems  to  have  that  his  method  of  viewing  the 
Bible  will  draw  unbelievers,  especially  such  unbelievers 
as  find  edification  in  Mr.  Bradlaugh's  teachings,  to  a 
rational  study  of  the  Scriptures  ;  but  in  fact  "  Litera- 
ture and  Dogma  "  is  a  volume  which  believers,  unbe- 
lievers, misbelievers,  and  make-believers  would  unite 
in  neglecting  or  condemning.  It  might  be  supposed 
that  the  author  would  say  a  word  to  conciliate  the 
Unitarians;  but  he  seemed  to  dread  contact  with  them, 
alluding  to  tliem  only  to  warn  them  from  the  indul- 


MATTHEW  ARNOLD.  303 

gencc  of  any  complacency  they  might  feel  in  hoping 
tiiat  he  was  coming  over  to  their  side,  —  forgetting 
that  this  denomination  possessed,  in  James  Martineau, 
one  of  the  foremost  theological  scholars  and  thinkers  of 
our  day,  and  one  who,  in  respect  to  mere  "  culture," 
had  a  right  to  be  ranked  among  the  best  writers  of 
the  age.  Thus  excluding  sympathy  from  all  quarters, 
subtly  insulting  all  liberals  and  illiberals  in  turn,  Mr. 
Arnold's  "  Literature  and  Dogma,"  full  of  bright  and 
penetrating  thought  as  it  is,  and  thronging  with  felici- 
ties of  diction  that  make  the  ordinary  rhetorician 
survey  it  with  "  admiring  despair,"  ended  in  convin- 
cing only  one  person  of  the  infallibility  of  its  interpre- 
tation of  the  Bible.  It  is  needless  to  add  that  the 
person  thus  convinced  was  the  author.  And  this 
result  might  lead  many  crabbed  orthodox  divines  to 
reverse  his  definition  of  God  as  the  "  Eternal,  not  our- 
selves, that  makes  for  righteousness,"  so  as  to  make 
it  read :  "  The  temporal,  not  ourselves,  who  make's  for 
Matthew  Arnold's  revelation  of  the  true  meaning  of 
the  Scriptures." 

If  space  permitted,  we  should  like  to  enumerate 
some  of  the  positive  additions  made  by  Mr.  Arnold  to 
the  language  of  literary  criticism.  No  writer  of  our 
generation  has  been  more  prolific  in  devising  felicitous 
phrases,  distinctions,  and  definitions,  which  have 
easily  passed  into  circulation  as  representatives  of 
facts  in  our  intellectual  and  moral  constitution,  and 
which  hardly  lose  their  freshness  and  force  even  when 
he   persistently  repeats   them   in   essay  after   essay 


304  MATTHEW  ARNOLD. 

They,  embody  in  pointed  expression  the  delicacy  and 
the  depth  of  his  perceptions.  They  often  have  the 
fatal  certainty  of  those  insights  which  reward  the 
steady  gaze  of  a  spiritual  observer  of  spiritual  facts. 
They  are  specially  prominent  in  his  literary  papers, 
and  one  would  readily  exchange  hundreds  of  pages 
which  he  has  devoted  to  theology  and  politics  for  a 
series  of  articles  that  would  include  a  more  extended 
consideration  of  the  men  of  genius  incidentally  re- 
ferred to  in  his  books,  such  as  Sophocles,  Plato,  Dante, 
Lucretius,  Montaigne,  Bossuet,  Voltaire,  Goethe,  Spen- 
ser, Keats,  not  to  mention  others.  In  the  present 
inadequate  notice  of  him,  we  feel  that  we  have  been 
led  unconsciously  into  placing  too  much  emphasis  on 
some  of  his  peculiarities,  which  are  calculated  to  pro- 
voke, if  not  to  exasperate,  many  readers  who  are  none 
the  less  charmed  by  the  exquisite  beauty  of  his  style ; 
by  the  graceful  ease  with  which  he  commands  at  will 
all  the  resources  of  his  large  learning ;  by  the  inflexi- 
ble honesty  and  independence  of  spirit  which  marks 
his  partial  and  sometimes  prejudiced  judgments  of 
men  and  things ;  and  by  the  expansiveness,  the  fer- 
tility, the  subtilety  of  his  intellect,  when  his  intellect 
has  fair  play,  and  is  not  controlled  by  obvious  faults 
in  his  disposition  and  intellectual  character. 


BARRY   CORNWALL   AND   SOME  OF  HIS 
CONTEMPORARIES. 

Bryan  Waller  Procter  ^  occupies  a  prominent 
place  among  poets  of  the  second  class,  in  a  genera- 
tion signalized  by  the  appearance  of  such  imaginative 
minds/  of  the  first  class  as  Wordsworth,  Coleridge, 
Byron,  Scott,  Shelley,  and  Keats.  In  the  early  part 
of  the  nineteenth  century  there  was  in  Great  Britain 
a  revival  of  letters,  such  as  the  nation  had  not  wit- 
nessed since  the  grand  Elizabethan  period  of  its  liter- 
ary history.  Inspiration  was  in  the  very  air  of  the 
time ;  and  sensitive  hearts  and  intellects  inhaled  it  in 
the  mere  unconscious  effort  of  breathing.  The  stim- 
ulus of  this  new  atmosphere  was  specially  felt  in  its 
quickening  effect  on  the  imagination  and  the  passions. 
In  tlie  age  of  Dryden  and  Pope,  the  poet  made  his 
mark  by  the  condensation  and  point  of  the  heroic 
couplets  in  which  he  embodied  his  practical  thinking; 
in  the  new  age  inaugurated  by  Wordsworth,  the  poet 

^  Bryan  Waller  Procter  (Barry  Cornwall).  An  Autobiographical 
Fragment  and  Biographical  Notes,  with  Personal  Sketches  of  Con- 
temporaries, Unpublished  Lyrics,  and  Letters  of  Literary  Friends. 
Boston :  Roberts  Brothers. 

Barry  Cornwall  and  Some  of  his  Friends.  By  James  T.  Fields. 
Boston  :  J.  R.  Osgood  &  Co. 

20 


306  BARRY  CORNWALL 

penetrated  below  the  maxims  of  practical  thinking 
into  the  profounder  region  of  ideal  thought. 

The  mistake  committed  by  most  of  the  followers 
and  imitators  of  Pope  was  due  to  their  fond  delusion 
that  they  became  poets  simply  by  exercising  an  ac- 
quired knack  of  putting  the  commonplaces  of  common- 
sense  into  smooth  ten-syllabled  verses.  Their  utter 
sterility,  both  of  thought  and  of  the  results  of  logical 
thinking,  invited  and  provoked  the  reaction  against 
the  whole  poetic  system  of  which  Pope  was  the  head. 
Persons  whom  he  would  hardly  have  condescended 
to  admit  into  the  "  Dunciad,"  came  to  be  at  last  the 
only  representatives  of  his  school.  But  it  was  found 
that  the  revolution  which  violently  overturned  the  old 
dynasty  furnished  dunces  and  charlatans  with  new 
temptations,  motives,  and  opportunities  to  hide  their 
poverty  of  thought  and  incapacity  for  thinking  under 
a  skilful  mimicry  of  Wordsworth's  thoughtfulness  and 
Byron's  passion.  They  indulged  to  their  heart's  con- 
tent, or  rather  to  their  tongue's  content,  in  wild  out- 
bursts of  senseless  sensibility,  expressed  in  a  throng 
of  irrelevant  metaphors  and  images  which  represented 
nothing,  which  illustrated  nothing,  and  which  were 
accordingly  good  for  nothing.  Wordsworth's  theory 
of  the  intimate,  mysterious  connection  of  the  soul  of 
man  with  the  soul  indwelling  in  visible  Nature  was 
almost  as  much  a  discovery  in  the  realm  of  poetry  as 
Newton's  demonstration  of  the  law  of  gravitation  was 
a  discovery  in  the  realm  of  science.  As  expressed  in 
his  lines  on  revisiting  the  ruins  of  Tintern  Abbey, 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES.       307 

and  in  his  immortal  Odo  on  Immortality,  it  gave  the 
key-note  to  the  poetry  of  the  century.  Talfourd  was 
justified  in  his  assertion  that  Wordsworth  was  both 
"  ridiculed  and  pillaged "  by  Byron ;  for  the  stanzas 
in  the  third  canto  of  "  Childe  Harold "  which  arc 
specially  elemental  in  thought  and  feeling,  penetrat- 
ing as  they  do  into  the  very  soul  of  Nature,  are 
merely  the  translation  of  Wordsworth's  mysticism 
into  Byronese.  But  Byron  popularized  the  original 
thought  of  Wordsworth  by  giving  it  the  stamp  of  his 
own  individuality,  and  infusing  into  it  the  heat  of 
his  own  passion.  He  made  it  infectious  in  making  it 
his  own.  The  effect  of  the  establishment  and  domes- 
tication of  this  transcendental  element  in  the  poetry 
of  the  period  was  to  relieve  vagueness  of  thought  and 
expression  from  its  old  stigma  of  being  identical  with 
vacuity  of  mind.  The  finest  passages  of  Wordsworth, 
Byron,  and  Shelley  might  be  called  vague,  because  they 
demanded  a  certain  subtilety  of  perception  in  the  reader 
to  be  appreciated  at  their  full  worth  ;  the  vagueness, 
in  their  case,  was  the  result  of  exceptional  depth  and 
delicacy  of  thought  and  feeling.  But  the  new  school 
of  poets  supplied  no  critical  tests  by  which  mediocrity 
might  be  instantly  distinguished  from  excellence  ;  for 
obscurity  of  expression  was  no  longer  the  one  unpar- 
donable sin  of  rhetoric,  and  three  quarters  of  the 
readers  of  Wordsworth,  nine  tenths  of  the  readers  of 
Shelley,  and  at  least  a  half  of  the  readers  of  Byron  did 
not  comprehend — they  weiie  content  merely  to  feel  — 
the  noblest  and  most  orimnal  ideas  concerniu";  Nature 


308  BARRY  CORNWALL 

which  were  announced  in  their  writings  as  divinations 
of  the  soul  working  under  the  impulse  of  impassioned 
imagination.  There  was  therefore  a  vast  opportunity 
presented  for  second-rate,  third-rate,  and  fifth-rate 
poetasters  to  puzzle,  distract,  and  dazzle  a  public 
which  had  come  to  consider  vagueness  and  obscurity 
as  perfectly  consistent  with  a  high  order  of  genius, 
and  which  had  not  acquired  the  power  of  discrimi- 
nating between  the  transcendentalists,  who  really 
transcended  ordinary  minds  by  superior  gifts  of  in- 
sight, and  impudent  pretenders  to  transcendentalism, 
who  were  unintelligible  merely  because  they  had  no 
definite  idea  of  anything,  no  real  passion  for  anything, 
and  no  capacity  to  express  anything. 

On  the  other  side,  there  was  one  admirable  and 
settled  principle  taught  to  the  rhymers  brought  up  in 
the  school  of  Pope,  —  that  their  littleness,  whether  of 
brain  or  character,  was  inevitably  revealed  in  adopt- 
ing his  form  of  versification  and  in  submitting  to  his 
poetic  laws.  The  austere  requirements  which  he  ex- 
acted of  all  persons  who  aspired  to  be  poets  after  his 
model,  were  vigor  of  thinking  and  vigor  in  expressing 
the  results  of  thinking ;  and  he  placed  a  special  em- 
phasis on  clearness  of  thought  and  expression.  The 
pretenders  who  seemingly  adhered  to  his  somewhat 
pedantic  rules  were  instantly  detected  by  their  lack  of 
his  terseness  and  brightness,  of  his  graceful  fancy 
and  strong  good  sense,  of  liis  incisive  reasoning  and 
epigrammatic  point.  Young's  series  of  seven  satires 
on  the  Universal  Passion  prove  that  an  able  man,  writ- 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES.       309 

ing  under  the  limitations  of  what  is  called  the  school 
of  Dryden  and  Pope,  finds  in  them  nothing  which 
.obstructs  the  action  of  a  fertile,  original,  and  ener- 
getic mind.  Even  Cowper  in  his  satires  submits  to 
the  autocracy  of  Pope  without  losing  any  of  that 
originality  of  mind  and  character  which  made  him 
the  fit  precursor  of  Wordsworth  in  writings  worthier 
of  his  genius.  Churchill  found  the  heroic  couplet  an 
efficient  medium  of  communication  with  the  public, 
allowing  free  and  full  vent  to  all  the  ferocity  and 
brutality  of  his  nature,  as  well  as  to  the  coarse  strong 
vein  of  sense,  wit,  humor,  and  sentiment  which  was 
inseparably  associated  with  his  ferocity  and  brutality. 
But  the  vast  majority  of  the  followers  of  Pope  were  a 
feeble  folk,  perhaps  best  represented,  in  the  dying  out 
of  his  system  and  method,  by  William  Hayley,  who 
was  as  a  man  kindly  and  well  meaning,  and  who  was 
as  a  poet  the  perfection  of  amiable  imbecility.  Still, 
he,  no  less  than  the  other  small  poets  of  the  school 
he  represented,  was  compelled  to  be  clear  in  thought 
as  well  as  "correct"  in  versification;  and  his  lucidity, 
therefore,  only  made  his  mediocrity  more  glaringly 
and  distressingly  conspicuous. 

It  was  not  so  with  the  followers  and  imitators  of 
Wordsworth  and  Byron.  Many  of  them  obtained  a 
transient  reputation,  with  no  more  real  pretensions  to 
renown  than  were  found  in  their  profuse  indulgence 
in  obscurity  and  rant.  The  new  school  of  poets, 
subordinating  understanding  to  insight,  and  logic  to 
spiritual   perception,  aimed  to  restore   the  long-lost 


310  BAURY  CORNWALL 

connection  between  the  bard  and  the  seer.  In  thus 
striking  at  the  deepest  sources  of  poetry,  they  aban- 
doned the  current  standards  of  excellence  established 
by  the  most  influential  critics  of  the  time ;  and  when 
the  leading  organ  of  critical  opinion,  the  "  Edinburgh 
Eevicw,"  decried  the  grandest,  most  profound  and 
original  passages  of  Wordsworth  as  the  prolix  out- 
pourings of  a  "  rapturous  mysticism,"  as  the  dull  pro- 
ducts of  "forced  and  affected  ecstasies,"  the  result 
was  to  bring  criticism  itself  into  disrepute,  since  it 
thus  plainly  showed  its  incapacity  to  discern  what  it 
derided.  If  men  of  the  first  class  could  thus  be  con- 
temptuously underrated,  fifth-rate  men  might  well  hope 
to  pass  off  their  really  "  forced  and  affected  ecstasies  " 
as  the  genuine  inspiration  of  the  Muse ;  since  their 
unintelligible  rant  could  call  forth  no  harsher  judg- 
ment than  that  rendered  in  the  case  of  the  loftiest 
spiritual  experiences  of  imaginative  genius,  in  the 
expression  of  which  there  were  palpable  marks  of 
the  presence  of  "  the  vision  and  the  faculty  divine." 
And  not  only  was  the  criticism  of  the  poetry  of  the 
time  deficient  in  perception  of  the  higher  qualities  of 
the  new  school  of  poets,  but  it  was  further  vitiated  by 
intense  political  prejudices  and  personal  enmities  ;  so 
that  at  last  it  became  almost  impossible  for  well- 
meaning  readers  to  be  honestly  guided  in  their  judg- 
ment of  books  by  consulting  the  decisions  of  the 
self-created  authorities  in  matters  of  literature  and 
taste.  Tlius  Keats  was  merely  the  friend  and  acquaint- 
ance of  Hunt  and  Ilazlitt :  there  was  no  evidence  in 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES-       oil 

his  verse  of  his  political  opinions ;  and  yet  he  was 
l)rutally  assailed  in  the  "  Quarterly  Review  "  and  in 
"  Blackwood's  Magazine  "  as  a  drooling,  babyish  fool, 
with  no  genius,  because  he  happened  to  be  connected 
with  a  radical  set  whom  all  good  Tories  were  taught 
both  to  despise  and  abhor. 

Procter  grew  up  into  manhood  at  the  period  when 
this  fertility  in  original  genius  was  accompanied  with 
this  anarchy  in  the  decisions  of  critical  jurisprudence. 
He  was  an  imitator  of  none  of  his  contemporaries ; 
but  what  powers  of  thought,  fancy,  imagination,  and 
passion  he  possessed  were  naturally  influenced  by  the 
poetic  medium  in  which  his  mind  moved.  He  had  a 
passionate  love  of  poetry  in  every  form  in  which  it 
found  expression,  and  even  keenly  appreciated  the 
merits  of  poets  who  denied  merit  to  each  other. 
There  was  a  singular  union  in  him  of  boldness  and 
modesty.  When  his  feelings  and  imagination  were 
touched,  he  resolutely  abandoned  himself  to  the  in- 
spiration of  his  theme,  and  ventured  freely  into  fine 
audacities  of  thought  and  expression;  but  in  indi- 
vidual disposition  he  was  the  reverse  of  self-assertion, 
and  in  conversation  was  rather  reticent.  There  was, 
however,  a  precious  something  in  his  nature  which 
attracted  esteem  and  love.  His  numerous  friends 
and  acquaintances,  including  at  least  a  hundred  per- 
sons eminent  or  prominent  in  politics,  art,  literature, 
and  science,  never  seemed  disposed  to  exercise  on 
him  the  intolerance  they  frequently  displayed  in  their 
intercourse,  or  non-intercourse,  with  each  other.     The 


312  BARRY  CORNWALL 

imperturbable  kindliness  of  his  nature,  the  delicate 
sense  of  justice  he  evinced  in  refusing  to  have  his  lit- 
erary opinions  affected  by  political  animosity  or  per- 
sonal prejudice,  and  the  absence  in  him  of  egotism 
while  genially  mixing  with  a  crowd  of  able  egotists, 
made  him  a  delightful  companion  to  all  who  had  the 
pleasure  of  enjoying  his  companionship.  It  is  proba- 
ble that  much  of  his  diffidence,  extending  at  times  to 
self-abnegation,  came  from  that  dramatic  element  in 
his  individual  disposition  which  found  through  his 
genius  brilliant,  though  not  to  him  satisfactory,  ex- 
pression in  his  "  Dramatic  Scenes "  and  no  less  dra- 
matic "  Songs."  His  ambition  evidently  was  to  be  an 
observer  of  human  life  and  character,  and,  as  a  poet, 
to  be  able  to  pass  oi^t  of  himself  at  will  inta  a  world 
of  imagined  beings,  in  which  impartial  justice  should 
be  done  to  types  of  character  and  moods  of  mind 
widely  different  from  his  own.  He  wished  to  be  a 
dramatist  in  the  sphere  of  ideal  life,  as  he  was  in 
actual  life, — a  dramatist  through  his  sympathetic  in- 
sight into  minds  and  hearts  that  came  under  his  daily 
observation,  and  for  whose  infirmities  and  defects  he 
had  the  large  toleration  which  is  an  indispensable 
element  of  true  dramatic  genius.  His  immense  ad- 
miration of  Robert  Browning,  a  poet  who  appeared 
after  he  had  himself  almost  abandoned  even  the  habit 
of  making  verses,  was  due  to  his  admiration  of 
Browning's  exceptional  dramatic  power,  by  which  he 
multiplied  his  individual  existence  by  making  his 
mind  inhabit  and  animate  so  many  different  forms  of 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPOEARIES.        313 

human  character,  Procter  had  in  his  early  poetic 
manhood  a  similar  desire  for  this  extension  of  his 
individual  being;  but  he  felt  in  his  poetic  middle  age 
that  he  had  not  been  endowed  with  a  similar  power 
of  realizing  it. 

As  Procter  was  born  in  1787  and  died  in  1874,  his 
life  included  three  generations  of  poets,  extending 
even  to  the  period  when  the  fame  of  Browning  and 
Tennyson — authors  who  began  to  write  after  he  had 
practically  ceased  to  publish  anything  —  was  con- 
tested by  a  new  brood  of  poets,  now  fighting  for 
prominence  in  the  public  eye,  with  novel  theories  of 
poetry  sustained  by  novel  theories  of  •  criticism.  All 
three  of  these  generations  seem  to  have  loved  and 
honored  him.  He  was  celebrated  in  verse  by  the 
octogenarian  Landor  and  by  the  youthful  Swinburne. 
"  Barry,"  exclaims  Landor,  — 

"  Barry,  your  spirit  long  ago 
Has  haunted  me  ;  at  last  I  know 
The  heart  it  springs  from  :  one  more  sound 
Ne'er  rested  on  poetic  ground  ; " 

and  Swinburne,  after  Procter  had  let  fall,  in  a  conver- 
sation with  him  and  Bayard  Taylor,  that  his  poetry 
was  now  (1868)  less  known  than  it  had  been,  could  not 
rest  until  he  had  denied  it  in  some  graceful  stanzas. 
There  were  some  vernal  blossoms,  the  young  poet  said, 
that  "  bear  no  fruit  eternal ;  "  but  he  adds :  — 

"No  time  casts  down,  no  time  upraises. 
Such  loves,  such  memories,  and  such  praises 
As  need  no  grace  of  sun  or  shower, 


314  BARRY  CORNWALL 

No  saving  screen  from  frost  or  thunder, 
To  tend  and  house  around  and  under 
The  imperishable  and  peerless  flower." 

Indeed,  there  hardly  ever  was  a  sweet  and  an  hon- 
orable old  age  cherished  by  more  tender  marks  of 
domestic  affection,  and  ministered  to  by  a  larger 
troop  of  attached  friends  and  admirers,  than  the  old 
age  of  this  poet. 

The  interesting  "  Biographical  Notes",  published  by 
his  family,  and  the  pleasing  memories  of  him  re- 
corded in  the  charming  little  volume  by  Mr.  Fields 
exhibit  him  as  he  was  in  himself,  and  as  he  appeared 
in  his  relations  with  his  intimate  friends.  "  The  Au- 
tobiographical Sketch  "  provokingly  stops  at  the  very 
beginning  of  his  career,  and  is  characterized,  or  if  we 
may  invent  a  more  intense  word  fitting  his  case,  is 
"  peculiarized,"  by  his  persistent  habit  of  underrating 
his  powers.  He  was  the  son  of  a  man  of  moderate 
fortune,  scanty  education,  and  mediocre  abilities,  but 
one  in  whose  nature  parsimony  was  indissolubly  con- 
nected with  integrity,  and  who  was  uncompromisingly 
honest  in  thought,  word,  and  act,  without  having 
the  grace  of  generosity  to  make  his  rectitude  lova- 
ble. His  mother  was  simply  "  the  kindest  and 
tenderest  mother  in  the  world."  At  the  age  of  five 
Bryan  was  sent  to  a  boarding-school  near  London,  and 
had  to  fight  his  way,  as  well  as  he  could,  among  older 
boys ;  at  the  age  of  thirteen  he  was  sent  to  the  great 
public  school  of  Harrow,  where  he  bore  himself  cred- 
itably among  the  boys,  both  as  to  learning  his  lessons 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES.        315 

and  using  his  fists,  —  without,  however,  having  any 
particular  ambition  to  excel  others  either  in  scholar- 
ship or  pugilism.  Among  his  school-fellows  there 
were  two  striplings  afterwards  celebrated  all  over  the 
world,  —  Robert  Peel,  who  lived  to  become  one  of  the 
foremost  statesmen  of  England ;  and  Noel  Byron,  who 
attained  an  equal  celebrity  as  a  poet.  Of  Peel,  Proc- 
ter says  nothing,  though  he  must  have  shown  as  a 
boy  some  of  the  qualities  which  eventually  made  him 
the  great  compromiser  between  opposite  political  fac- 
tions, and  may  perhaps  in  his  dealings  with  other 
boys  have  early  given  in  his  adhesion  to  the  economic 
doctrine  which  only  in  his  old  age  he  consented  to 
carry  out,  of  "  buying  in  the  cheapest  market  and 
selling  in  the  dearest."  Of  Byron,  Procter  says  that 
none  of  his  companions  could  have  dreamed  of  his 
blossoming  into  a  poet,  as  he  was  loud,  coarse,  capa- 
ble— very  capable  —  of  a  boy's  vulgar  enjoyments, 
playing  at  hockey  and  racquets,  and  "  occasionally 
indulging  in  pugilistic  combats,"  Procter's  vacations 
were  spent  in  a  large  mansion  of  his  mother's  uncle, 
where,  he  tells  us,  his  imagination  was  first  awakened 
by  a  bedroom  papered  in  the  old-fashioned  way, 
which  "  suggested  many  wonderful  thoughts "  and 
was  not  without  its  terrors.  There  looked  out  of  the 
paper,  he  says,  "  strange  faces  and  objects,  partaking 
at  once  of  the  bird  and  the  beast,"  —  some  beautiful, 
some  terrible,  but  all  disturbing  to  his  brain.  He 
began  to  dream,  to  recollect  his  dreams,  to  dwell 
upon  them,  and  to  strive  "  to  discover  their  meanings 


316  BARRY  CORNWALL 

and  origin."  Then  the  meadows,  fields,  and  gardens 
around  the  house  stirred  a  strange  rapture  in  his  soul. 
There  happened  also  to  be  in  his  uncle's  family  a 
female  servant  who  was  "  the  daughter  of  a  man  who 
had  failed  in  a  profession  or  business,"  and  who  was 
the  most  cultivated  person  in  the  spacious  mansion. 
She  had  read  some  of  the  English  historians  and 
poets,  was  familiar  with  the  novels  of  Richardson  and 
Fielding,  and  narrated  to  the  eager  boy  "  their  stories 
fluently  and  emphatically,  and  with  marvellous  taste 
and  discrimination  of  the  characters.  But  above  all 
—  high  above  all — she  worshipped  Shakspeare.  She 
it  was,"  he  adds,  "  who  first  taught  me  to  know  and 
love  him,"  and  by  reciting  to  him  passages  from  the 
plays  made  him  resolve,  "  I  will  buy  a  Shakspeare 
with  the  first  money  I  get."  This  vow  he  kept ;  and 
thus,  as  a  boy,  he  entered  "  into  a  world  beyond  his 
own."  Shakspeare  led  him  at  last  to  study  the  whole 
dramatic  literature  of  the  Elizabethan  age,  and  the 
result  was  evident  when  he  came  to  publish  his 
"  Dramatic  Poems." 

The  youth  on  leaving  Harrow  was  not  sent  to 
Oxford,  because  his  father,  "  a  saving  soul,"  was  de- 
termined against  it  by  the  statement  of  a  friend  he 
had  consulted.  "  I  never  learned  much  at  Oxford," 
said  this  critic,  "  and  my  boy  has  learned  nothing  — 
nothing  except  extravagant  habits."  Bryan  was  ac- 
cordingly sent  directly  to  study  law  under  a  solicitor 
in  a  Wiltshire  village.  He  thoroughly  prepared  him- 
self for  this  profession  by  "  reading  all  the  Enghsh 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES.       317 

poets  from  Chaucer  down  to  Burns,"  all  the  romances 
of  Le  Sage,  Fielding,  Richardson,  Sterne,  Inchbald, 
and  Radcliffe,  most  of  the  classics  which  had  been 
translated  into  English,  and  most  of  the  histories  ac- 
cessible to  ordinary  English  readers.  In  order  fur- 
ther to  qualify  himself  for  the  arduous  duties  of  the 
practice  of  law  he  fell  in  love,  and  began  to  write 
verses.  At  the  age  of  twenty  he  went  up  to  London 
with  the  intention  of  living  by  his  pen,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  prosecute  the  legal  studies  thus  happily ' 
begun.  It  was  not  until  1815,  when  he  contributed 
some  poems  to  the  "  Literary  Gazette,"  that  his  talent 
attracted  attention.  In  1816  his  father  died  leaving 
him  a  modest  competence,  which  he  was  disposed  to 
spend  freely,  though  at  about  this  time  he  began  the 
serious  study  of  conveyancing,  and  soon  afterwards 
entered  into  partnership  with  a  solicitor,  —  an  unpro- 
ductive partnership  as  it  proved,  which  was  dissolved 
in  1820,  after  he  had  incurred  some  losses.  A  pas- 
sion for  literary  distinction  which  for  many  years 
had  been  stirring  within  him  now  found  an  adequate 
outlet  in  his  "  Dramatic  Scenes,  and  Other  Poems," 
published  in  1819.  The  volume  passed  deservedly  to 
a  second  edition.  In  1820  it  was  succeeded  by  "  A 
Sicilian  Story  ; "  in  the  same  year  by  "  Marcian  Co- 
lonna ;  "  and  in  1821  by  the  tragedy  of  "Mirandola," 
which  was  not  only  a  success  on  the  stage,  having  a 
run  of  sixteen  nights,  but  also  a  success  with  the 
reading  public,  passing  rapidly  through  three  editions. 
The   author's  gains  reached  the  sum  of  X630.     In 


318  BARRY  CORNWALL 

1823  appeared  "The  Flood  of  Thessaly,  and  Other 
Poems ; "  and  then,  with  the  exception  of  "  Effigies 
Poeticae,"  a  thin  volume  published  in  1824,  the  au- 
thor's literary  ambition  subsided.  The  reason  for 
this  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  poet  had  realized  his 
poetic  ideal  in  one  of  the  happiest  marriages  recorded 
in  the  lives  and  loves  of  the  poets.  In  1820  he  had 
been  introduced  to  the  family  of  Basil  Montague. 
He  fell  in  love  with  a  daughter  of  Mrs.  Montague  by 
a  former  husband,  became  engaged  to  her  in  1821, 
and  married  her  in  1824.  He  thus  obtained  the 
great  prize  of  life,  —  a  prize  in  winning  which  either 
Dante,  Shakspeare,  Milton,  or  Byron  might  have 
envied  while  congratulating  him.  He  insured  his 
domestic  happiness  and  domestic  peace  by  marrying 
a  noble  woman,  whose  talents  and  accomplishments 
fitted  her  to  appear  in  any  society  in  Great  Britain 
on  a  footing  of  equality,  who  could  enter  no  society 
where  she  would  not  be  recognized  as  a  brilliant  ad- 
dition to  it,  and  who  tenderly  loved  and  appreciated 
the  husband  by  whom  she  was  adored. 

His  domestic  happiness  he  celebrated  in  his  well- 
known  "  Poet's  Song  to  his  Wife ; "  but  we  should 
rather  select  some  passages  from  the  little-known 
"  Epistle  from  an  Obscure  Philosopher,"  as  more  auto- 
biographic in  spirit.  In  this  he  describes  both  the 
ecstasy  of  the  lover  and  the  calm  "  sober  certainty 
of  waking  bliss  "  of  the  husband :  — 

She  stood  disclosed, 
A  perfect  soul  within  a  perfect  form  ; 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES.        319 

Unparalleled,  intelligent,  divine. 
Dreams  of  some  inner  Heaven  then  took  my  soul 
Captive,  and  flushed  the  thrilling  nerves  with  joy, 
Commingling  with  my  sleep  and  blessing  it. 
And  when  she  warmed  with  love,  my  eyes  amazed 
Met  thrice  the  wonders  I  before  had  seen  ; 
I  drank  in  fragrance  thousand  times  more  sweet 
Than  ever  lay  upon  the  hyacinth's  lip  ; 
Music  I  heard,  sphere-tuned,  harmonious. 
Ravishing  earth  and  sky  :  swarms  of  delight 
Encompassed  me,  until  my  soul  o'erwhelmed 
Sank  in  the  conflict  ;  and  I  then  poured  forth 
My  heart  in  numbeis  such  as  lovers  use :  — 

0  perfect  Love,  soft  joy,  untinged  with  pain ! 

0  sky  kept  cloudless  by  the  sighs  of  Spring  ! 

0  Bird,  that  bear'st  sweet  sounds  through  sun  and  rain, 
Give  thy  heart  way,  and  sing  1 

Look  down,  dear  Love,  as  Heaven  looks  down  on  earth  ! 

Be  near  me,  round  me,  like  the  enfolding  air ! 
Impart  some  beauty  from  thy  beauteous  worth, 

Or  be  thyself  less  fair. 

As  the  hart  panteth  for  the  water-brooks. 

As  the  dove  moaneth  in  the  lone  pine-tree, 
So,  left  unsunned  by  thy  care-charming  looks, 

1  pant,  I  mourn  for  thee  ! 

—  She  came  unto  my  home  ;  and  with  her  came 
Infinite  love,  content,  divine  repose. 
Life  rose  above  its  height,  and  we  beheld 
Beauty  in  all  things,  everywhere  delight ! 
The  sun  that  dwelt  in  our  own  hearts  shed  forth 
Its  beams  upon  the  world,  and  brightened  it  ; 
And  from  that  brightness,  as  the  ground  takes  back 
The  dews  it  gently  lends,  we  gathered  light 
That  led  us  through  the  dim  sweet  paths  of  life, 
Until  our  hearts  bloomed  forth  in  happiness. 


320  BARRY  CORNWALL 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  lover,  blessed  in  pos- 
sessing the  object  of  his  affection,  should  have  re- 
sumed his  profession  as  a  conveyancer,  and  worked 
steadily  to  provide  his  goddess  with  a  suitable  temple. 
At  the  time  he  married,  the  property  bequeathed  to 
him  by  his  father  yielded  an  income  of  five  hundred 
pounds.  He  added  largely  to  this  by  laboring  with 
all  his  might  to  make  himself  a  conveyancer  of  the 
first  class ;  he  worked  so  hard  that  for  some  time  he 
sat  up  all  night  for  two  nights  in  every  week,  in  order 
that  his  business  might  be  effectually  done,  and 
added  further  to  his  income  by  taking  into  his  office 
some  forty  or  fifty  pupils,  among  whom  were  two 
who  afterwards  became  distinguished  in  literature  ; 
namely,  A.  W.  Kinglake,  the  author  of  "  Eothen  "  and 
"  The  Invasion  of  the  Crimea,"  and  Eliot  "Warburton, 
the  author  of  "  The  Crescent  and  the  Cross."  By  in- 
domitable industry,  by  sheer  practical,  prosaic  work, 
Procter  obtained  the  means  of  making  his  London 
house  one  of  the  great  centres  of  literary  and  intellec- 
tual society.  As  a  man  and  as  a  poet  he  was  per- 
fectly contented  with  the  domestic  paradise  he  had 
created  by  his  professional  exertions,  and  gave  vent 
to  the  poetic  impulses  stirring  within  him  only  se- 
cretly, and  as  it  were  by  stealth, —  singing  the  joyous- 
ness  of  wine,  in  which  he  only  moderately  indulged ; 
exulting  in  glad  conceptions  of  the  sea,  on  which 
he  never  ventured,  even  to  cross  the  patch  of  water 
which  separates  Dover  from  Calais ;  and  putting  him- 
self into  a  number  of  dramatic   positions,  some  of 


AND  SOME  OP  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES.       321. 

which  were  happily  foreign  to  his  own.  All  these 
moods  of  his  brooding  intellect  and  heart,  —  some  of 
them  resting  on  solid  grounds  of  individual  expe- 
rience, but  most  of  them  springing  from  imagined 
scenes,  incidents,  and  characters  intensely  realized  to 
his  own  mind  as  he  dreamed  by  his  happy  fireside, — 
suddenly  blazed  out,  eight  years  after  his  happy  mar- 
riage, in  his  book  of  "  English  Songs."  The  volume 
gained  at  once  an  extensive  popularity  which  it  still  re- 
tains. It  will  probably  float  more  securely  down  the 
stream  of  time  than  any  of  his  other  works. 

In  the  same  year  (1832)  that  the  songs  were  pub- 
lished, Procter  was  appointed  to  the  office  of  Metro- 
politan Commissioner  of  Lunacy.  Whether  he  owed 
this  distinction  to  the  fine  poetic  frenzy  exhibited  in 
his  lyrics  may  be  doubted ;  but  from  his  ceasing  to 
publish  any  more  verses,  it  may  be  suspected  that  he 
considered  his  new  post  as  one  which  directed  him 
rather  to  keep  a  sharp  lookout  on  poets  than  further 
to  bring  his  own  sanity  into  question.  In  1835  he 
made  the  mistake  of  writing  "  The  Life  of  Edmund 
Kean,"  —  a  publication  unfortunate  in  every  respect, 
and  which  was  mercilessly  criticised  in  the  "  Quarterly 
Review  "  and  "  Blackwood's  Magazine."  The  latter  pe- 
riodical had  for  years  pursued  him  with  an  apparently 
motiveless  malice ;  and  the  appearance  of  the  Life  of 
Kean  furnished  it  with  an  opportunity  for  defamation 
which  it  did  not  hesitate  to  seize.  "  This,"  it  said, 
"  is  the  silliest  book  of  the  season.  To  say  that  it  is 
like  a  couple  of  bottles  of  small-beer  would  be  to  libel 

•21 


322  BARRY  CORNWALL 

that  fluid."  In  1866  he  published  a  memoir  which  was 
worthy  both  of  his  heart  and  his  head,  —  his  charm- 
ing vohime  on  Charles  Lamb.  "  I  have  found  in  your 
work,"  Carlyle  wrote  to  him,  "  something  so  touching, 
brave,  serene,  and  pious  that  I  cannot  but  write  to 
you  one  brief  word  of  recognition.  .  .  .  Brevity,  per- 
spicuity, graceful  clearness ;  then  also  perfect  vera- 
city, gentleness,  lovingness,  justness,  peaceable  candor 
throughout ;  a  fine,  kindly  sincerity  to  all  comers  ; 
with  sharp  enough  insight,  too,  quick  recognition 
graphically  rendered,  —  all  the  qualities,  in  short, 
which  such  a  book  could  have  1  find  visible  in  this, 
now  dating,  it  appears,  in  your  seventy-seventh  year. 
Every  page  of  it  recalls  the  old  Procter  whom  I  used 
to  talk  with  forty-two  years  ago,  unaltered  except  as 
the  finest  wines,  and  such  like,  alter  by  ripening  to 
the  full ;  a  man  as  if  transfigured  by  his  heavy-laden 
years,  and  to  whom  the  hoary  head  is  as  a  crown. 
Upon  all  which  another  old  man  congratulates  him, 
and  says  with  a  pathetic  kind  of  joy  his  Euge,  euge^ 
In  1861,  five  years  before  this,  Procter  had  resigned 
his  office  as  ono.  of  the  Commissioners  of  Lunacy, 
owing  to  the  condition  of  his  health ;  and  the  last 
ten  years  of  his  life  were  more  or  less  oppressed 
by  the  infirmities  of  age.  He  died  on  the  4th  of 
October,  1874. 

Procter's  relations  with  all  the  men  of  letters  of  his 
time  were  cordial  and  friendly  ;  but  his  sympathies 
were  specially  attracted  to  that  circle  of  writers  which 
included  Lamb,  Hunt,  and  Hazlitt.      He  liked  them 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES.       323 

all  the  more  because  they  were  atrociously  slandered 
and  socially  in  bad  odor.  Professor  Ticknor,  who 
met  almost  everybody  of  note  in  England,  was  once 
introduced  to  this  cluster  of  authors,  who  despised 
fashionable  society  and  were  rejected  by  it.  In  1819, 
at  a  dinner  at  Godwin's  house,  and  afterwards  at  a 
meeting  of  the  Saturday  Night  Club  at  Hunt's,  he 
saw  "  these  people,"  as  he  somewhat  superciliously 
calls  them,  together,  when  they  felt  called  upon  "  to 
show  off  and  produce  an  effect ;  "  for  then  "  Lamb's 
gentle  humor,  Hunt's  passion,  and  Curran's  volubility, 
Hazlitt's  sharpness  and  point,  and  Godwin's  great 
head  full  of  cold  brains,  all  coming  into  contact  and 
conflict,  and  agreeing  in  nothing  but  their  common 
hatred  of  everything  that  has  been  more  successful 
than  their  own  works,  made  one  of  the  most  curious 
and  amusing  olla  podrida  I  ever  met."  It  is  some- 
what surprising  that  a  man  whose  entire  studies  in 
Europe  were  directed  to  the  object  of  making  himself 
an  accomplished  student  and  critic  of  various  litera- 
tures should  dispose  of  such  persons  as  Lamb,  Hunt, 
Hazlitt,  and  Godwin  in  such  a  contemptuous  way, 
and  speak  of  them  as  "  these  people,"  thus  echoing 
the  fashionable  slang  current  in  the  higher  social 
circles  in  which  Ticknor  habitually  moved.  Indeed, 
nothing  he  records  of  the  conversation  at  Holland 
House  is  so  good  as  two  remarks  made  to  him  by 
Hazlitt,  —  one  that  "  Curran  was  the  Homer  of  black- 
guards," and  the  other  that  the  Emperor  Alexander  of 
Russia  "  was  the  Sir  Charles  Grandison  of  Europe." 


324  BAEUY  CORNWALL 

Prcoter  evidently  thought  that "  these  people  "  were 
worthy  of  |3eing  cultivated,  though  he  knew  them  so 
intimately  that  none  of  their  faults  escaped  his  atten- 
tion. If  he  is  uncharitable  at  all,  it  is  in  his  estimate 
of  Godwin.  He  was  repelled  by  the  frigidity  of  that 
philosopher's  character.  The  poet  Campbell,  he  said, 
had  ordinarily  a  cold,  Scotch,  cautious,  and  canny 
manner ;  but  "  there  was  sap  behind  the  bark.  If  the 
oppression  of  the  Poles,  or  any  other  flagrant  enor- 
mity, was  brought  before  him,  his  energy  quickly 
flamed  up.  And  he  was  also  very  vivacious,  not  to 
say  riotous,  in  his  cups."  Godwin,  on  the  contrary, 
was  ever  "  very  cold,  very  selfish,  very  calculating." 
All  his  philanthropy  was  put  into  his  books,  leaving 
nothing  to  be  put  into  his  life.  His  conduct  towards 
Shelley  "  was  merely  an  endeavor  to  extract  from  him 
as  much  money  as  possible."  The  special  champion 
of  equity  as  distinguished  from  legality,  he  still  did 
not  hesitate  to  deny  a  pecuniary  liability  to  a  friend, 
because  "  there  was  no  witness  to  the  loan."  And  yet 
this  man,  Procter  adds,  "  has  in  his  study  compiled 
fine  rhetorical  sentences  which  strangers  have  been 
ready  to  believe  flowed  warm  from  his  heart.  I  have 
always  thought  him  like  one  of  those  cold  intellectual 
demons  of  whom  we  read  in  French  and  German 
stories,  who  come  upon  earth  to  do  no  good  to  any 
one  and  harm  to  many."  This  seems  to  us  too  harsh 
a  judgment  of  the  author  of  "  Political  Justice  "  and 
of  the  novel  of  "  Caleb  Williams."  Godwin  was  the 
type  of  a  class  of  men  whose  hearts  find  no  adequate 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES.       325 

expression  except  through  their  brains.  There  is 
])assion  enough  both  in  his  political  writings  and  in 
his  romances,  but  it  is  passion  intellectualized ;  pas- 
sion used,  even  economized,  to  give  heat  to  analysis 
and  impetus  to  reasoning.  His  big  head  rested  on  a 
short,  slight  body  ;  and  all  the  blood  he  had  was  sent 
"through  the  veins  of  his  intellectual  frame."  He 
was  poor,  and  as  his  poverty  proceeded  from  the  in- 
disposition  of  the  general  public  to  pay  for  reasonings 
which  were  intended  to  prove  that  the  people  were 
the  needless  victims  of  superstition  and  injustice,  and 
that  they  might,  by  following  the  processes  of  his 
logic,  emancipate  themselves  from  their  oppressors, 
he  was  compelled  to  keep  up  the  interesting  connec- 
tion between  his  strong  mind  and  his  frail  body  by 
borrowing  from  his  friends  and  acquaintances  money 
which  was  never  repaid.  Talfourd  tells' us  that  the 
next  day  after  his  first  introduction  to  him  at  Lamb's 
chambers,  Godwin  called  upon  him,  and,  after  "  a  lit- 
tle chat  on  indifferent  matters,"  carelessly  observed 
that  he  was  in  need  of  X150  for  a  few  weeks,  and  re- 
quested Talfourd  to  lend  it  to  him.  On  learning  that 
his  new  acquaintance  was  a  young  lawyer  struggling 
for  existence,  and  had  no  money  for  such  a  benevo- 
lent purpose,  Godwin  blandly  remarked,  "  Oh,  dear !  I 
thought  you  were  a  young  gentleman  of  fortune;  don't 
mention  it,  don't  mention  it ;  I  shall  do  very  well 
elsewhere ; "  and  then  continued  the  conversation  first 
started  without  any  seeming  consciousness  that  there 
had  been  such  an  insignificant  break  in  it.     It  seems 


326  BARRY  CORNWALL 

to  us  that  there  was  nothing  of  the  demon  in  Godwin, 
though  there  was  much  of  the  intellectual  pedant. 
His  calm,  supreme  confidence  in  the  unassailable  truth 
of  his  opinions  may  have  come  from  his  laying  an  un- 
due emphasis  on  the  first  syllable  of  his  name  ;  and 
his  habit  of  borrowing  money  from  everybody  who 
would  lend  it  was  distinguished  from  Hunt's  only  by 
the  absence  of  geniality  in  his  manner  of  asking  for 
such  favors,  and  perhaps  by  a  thoroughly  reasoned,  a 
true  philosophical  absence  of  gratitude  to  those  who 
conferred  them. 

Procter  made  the  acquaintance  of  Leigh  Hunt  in 
1817.  He  found  him  residing  in  a  small  and  scantily 
furnished  house,  with  a  tiny  room  for  a  study,  which 
contained  few  books ;  but  among  them  were  an  edition 
of  the  Italian  poets  in  many  volumes,  Warton's  edi- 
tion of  Milton's  minor  poems,  and  the  complete  works 
of  Spenser.  No  edition  of  Shakspeare  was  in  the  col- 
lection. "  There  were  always  a  few  cut  flowers,  in  a 
glass  of  water,  on  the  table."  His  suppers  of  cold 
meat  and  salad  had  little  to  tempt  the  epicure,  but 
the  guests  were  such  men  as  Lamb,  Hazlitt,  Peacock, 
and  Coulson ;  and  at  small  cost  the  company  enjoyed 
all  the  raptures  and  glories  of  conviviality.  Thought 
and  wit,  knowledge  and  humor,  were  not  wanting  in 
such  an  assemblage ;  and  the  festivities  were  some- 
times prolonged  to  two  or  three  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing. Hunt,  says  Procter,  "  was  always  in  difficulty 
about  money;  but  he  was  seldom  sad,  and  never 
sour."     His  friends  did  what  they  could  to  prevent 


AND   SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORAllIES.       327 

poverty  from  souring  the  disposition  of  a  man  who 
ever  resolutely  opposed  gayety  to  misery,  and  preached 
the  gospel  of  cheer  while  bailiffs  were  watching  at  his 
humble  door.  He  reminds  us  more  of  old  Dekkar 
the  Elizabethan  dramatist,  who  turned  his  calamities 
into  commodities,  and  though  in  a  debtors'  prison 
was  still  "  all  felicity  up  to  the  brim,"  than  of  any 
other  professional  man  of  letters  in  English  literary 
history.  Mr.  Fields,  who  saw  much  of  Hunt  in  1851, 
thirty-four  years  after  Procter  first  made  his  acquaint- 
ance, declares  that  "  in  his  bare  cottage  in  Hammer- 
smith the  temperament  of  his  spirit  heaped  up  such 
riches  of  fancy  that  kings,  if  wise  ones,  might  envy 
his  magic  power.  .  .  .  When  he  looked  out  of  his 
dingy  old  windows  on  the  four  black  elms  in  front  of 
his  dwelling,  he  saw,  or  thought  he  saw,  a  vast  forest, 
and  he  could  hear,  in  the  note  of  one  poor  sparrow 
even,  the  silvery  voices  of  a  hundred  nightingales." 

Procter  was  the  constant  friend  of  this  Harold 
Skimpole  in  money  matters  as  well  as  in  heart  mat- 
ters. "I  have  reasons,"  Hunt  said  to  Mr.  Fields, 
"for  liking  our  dear  friend  Procter's  wine  beyond 
what  you  saw  when  we  dined  together  at  his  table 
the  other  day."  It  is  a  pity  that  Procter  did  not 
record  more  special  examples  of  Hunt's  peculiarities 
of  thought  and  character  tlian  he  has  done  in  his 
tribute  to  his  old  associate.  Perhaps  the  one  instance 
he  gives  is  better  than  any  other  he  could  recall  to 
his  memory.  Hunt  "  led  a  very  correct  and  domestic 
life;"  during  an  intimacy  extending  to  forty  years, 


328  BARRY  CORNWALL- 

Procter  never  heard  him  utter  an  oath  or  "  indulge  in 
an  indelicate  hint  or  allusion ; "  but  he  had  a  crotchet 
or  theory  about  the  social  intercourse  between  the 
sexes  which  he  at  one  time  harped  upon  so  fre- 
quently as  to  bore  his  companions  without  winning 
any  converts  to  his  opinion.  "  Dash  him ! "  said 
Hazlitt,  "  it 's  always  coming  out,  like  a  rash.  Why 
does  n't  he  write  a  book  about  it,  and  get  rid  of  it  ? " 

This  was  exactly  what  Hazlitt  himself  did,  in  the 
strange  hallucination  which  clouded  his  keen  intellect, 
and  for  the  time  made  his  friends  fear  that  he  would 
end  his  days  in  an  insane  asylum,  when  he  fell  madly 
in  love  with  Sophia  Walker,  the  daughter  of  the 
keeper  of  the  lodging-house  where  he  resided.  He 
wrote  and  published  "Liber  Amoris,"  —  one  of  the 
most  mortifying  instances  ever  exhibited  in  literature 
of  a  strong  man,  mature  in  age,  and  somewhat  cynical 
in  his  observations  of  life,  falling  violently  back  into  the 
mental  and  sensuous  condition  of  a  babbling,  blubber- 
ing, boobyish  boy ;  but  after  the  book  was  published, 
"the  rash"  that  had  broken  out  all  over  him  sub- 
sided, and  his  intellect  resumed  its  normal  clearness 
and  force.  While  under  the  influence  of  his  insane 
passion  he  not  only  abandoned  all  literary  work,  but 
he  bored  every  acquaintance  he  met  with  the  most 
minute  details  of  his  infatuation.  "  I  am  a  cursed 
fool,"  he  said,  as  in  the  course  of  his  wanderings  he 

happened  to  buttonhole  Procter ;  "  I  saw  J going 

into  Wills'  coffee-house  yesterday  morning ;  he  spoke 
to  me.     I  followed  him  into  the  house,  and  while  he 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES.       329 

lunched  I  told  him  the  whole  story.  Then  I  wan- 
dered into.  Regent's  Park,  where  I  met  one  of  M 's 

sons.     I  Avalkod   with   him   some    time,  and  on  his 

using  some  civil  expression,  by !  sir,  I  told  him 

the  whole  story.  Well,  sir,  I  then  went  and  called  on 
Haydon,  but  he  was  out.     There  was  only  his  man 

Salmon  there ;  but  by !  I  could  not  help  myself. 

It  all  came  out ;  the  whole  cursed  story  !  Afterwards 
I  went  to  look  at  some  lodgings  at  Pimlico.  The 
landlady  at  one  place,  after  some  explanations  as  to 
rent,  etc.,  said  to  me  very  kindly,  '  I  am  afraid  you 
are  not  well,  sir  ? '  '  No,  ma'am,'  said  I,  '  I  am  not 
well ; '  and  on  inquiring  further,  the  devil  take  me  if 
1  did  not  let  out  the  whole  story  from  beginning  to 
end ! "  Procter  knew  the  girl  who  thus  degraded 
Hazlitt  into  an  imbecile  chatterer.  "  Her  face,"  he 
says,  "  was  round  and  small,  and  her  eyes  were 
motionless,  glassy,  and  without  any  speculation  (ap- 
parently) in  them.  Her  movements  in  walking  were 
very  remarkable,  for  I  never  observed  her  to  make  a 
step.  She  went  onwards  in  a  sort  of  wavy,  sinuous 
manner,  like  the  movement  of  a  snake.  She  was 
silent,  or  uttered  monosyllables  only,  and  was  very 
demure.  Her  steady,  unmoving  gaze  upon  the  per- 
son she  was  addressing  was  exceedingly  unpleasant." 
This  essentially  stupid  and  vulgar  wench  may  have 
had  in  her  some  of  the  fascination  of  the  witch ;  but 
we  find  nothing  in  Procter's  description  of  her,  or  her 
traits  as  exhibited  in  the  ravings  of  her  lover  in 
"  Liber  Amoris,"  which  are  not  consistent  with  the 


330  BARRY  CORNWALL 

theory  that  she  was  quite  an  ordinary  specimen  of 
selfish,  cold-blooded  maidenhood,  endowed  with  a  low 
kind  of  feminine  craft,  cunning,  and  malice,  and  on 
the  whole  the  occasion  rather  than  the  cause  of  the 
unexpected  outburst  in  Hazlitt  of  a  sentimental  mad- 
ness as  wild  as  any  recorded  in  the  Confessions  of 
Rousseau. 

Of  Hazlitt  as  a  writer,  thinker,  and  critic,  Procter 
had  a  high  opinion,  and  he  also  esteemed  him  as  a 
man.  "  Some  things,"  he  says,  "  of  which  he  has 
been  accused  were  referable  merely  to  temporary 
humor  or  irritability,  which  was  not  frequent,  and 
which  was  laid  aside  in  an  hour.  All  other  times 
(by  far  the  greater  portion  of  his  life)  he  was  a  can- 
did and  reasonable  man.  He  felt  acutely  the  injuries 
and  slanders,  however,  which  were  spit  forth  on 
him,  and  resented  them."  When  a  question  arose 
in  a  company  of  intellectual  men,  "  the  most  sensible 
reply  always  came  from  him."  So  enduring  was  the 
impression  left  by  Hazlitt' s  power  on  Procter's  mind 
that  he  was  never  tired  of  quoting  pointed  sentences 
culled  from  the  writings  of  his  friend ;  and  shortly 
before  his  death  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Fields,  "  I  despair 
of  the  age  that  has  forgotten  to  read  Hazlitt." 

In  the  "  Sketches  "  of  literary  men,  now  first  pub- 
lished, Procter  adds  little  to  what  he  had  previously 
written  of  Charles  Lamb.  .  This  delightful  companion, 
distinguished  not  more  by  his  genius  than  by  his 
character,  —  his  character  being  indeed  a  prominent 
element  in  his  genius,  —  was  among  the  dearest  and 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES.       331 

most  valued  of  Procter's  friends.  Lamb  signs  him- 
self, in  a  short  letter  printed  in  this  volume,  "  yours 
ever  and  two  evers."  Mr.  Fields's  book  contains 
a  characteristic  anecdote  of  Lamb's  generosity. 
"  Thinking,  from  a  depression  of  spirits  which  Proc- 
ter in  his  young  manhood  was  once  laboring  under, 
that  perhaps  he  was  in  want  of  money,  Lamb  looked 
him  earnestly  in  the  face  as  they  were  walking  one 
day  in  the  country  together,  and  blurted  out,  in  his 
stammering  way,  '  My  dear  boy,  I  have  a  hundred- 
pound  note  in  my  desk  that  I  really  don't  know  what 
to  do  with :  oblige  me  by  taking  it,  and  getting  the 
confounded  thing  out  of  my  keeping.' "  Procter  as- 
sured him  that  he  was  not  in  an  impecunious  condi- 
tion, but  found  it  hard  work  to  make  his  companion 
believe  it. 

Like  the  rest  of  the  race  of  authors,  and  indeed,  it 
may  be  added,  the  rest  of  mankind,  Procter  knew 
Samuel  Rogers,  the  poet  and  banker.  Rogers  must 
have  begun  to  look  old  forty  years  before  he  died. 
Jokes  which  date  back  as  far  as  the  year  1830  depend 
for  their  point  on  the  fact  that  there  was  then  some- 
thing withered  and  ghastly  in  his  countenance.  The 
story  runs  that  an  acquaintance  who  met  him  in  a 
public  conveyance,  looking  like  a  corpse  on  its  travels, 
said  to  him,  "  Now  that  you  are  rich  enough,  Rogers, 
why  don't  you  set  up  a  hearse  of  your  own  ? "  Mr. 
Fields,  who  saw  him  in  his  last  years,  denies  that  his 
face,  faded  as  were  its  features,  looked  spectral  and 
sepulchral.     He  gives  an  amusing  account  of  the  old 


332  BAERY  CORNWALL 

man's  indignation  at  Samuel  Lawrence's  recent  por- 
trait of  him.  "  Rogers  himself  wished  to  compare  it 
with  his  own  face,  and  had  a  looking-glass  held  up 
before  him.  We  sat  in  silence  as  he  regarded  the  pic- 
ture attentively,  and  waited  for  his  criticism.  Soon 
he  burst  forth, '  Is  my  nose  so  dashed  sharp  as  that  ? ' 
'No!  no!'  we  all  exclaimed,  'the  artist  is  at  fault 
there,  sir.'  '  I  thought  so,'  he  cried ;  '  he  has  painted 
the  face  of  a  dead  man,  dash  him ! '  Some  one  said, 
'  The  portrait  is  too  hard.'  '  I  won't  be  painted  as 
a  hard  man,'  rejoined  Rogers.  '  I  am  not  a  hard 
man,  am  I,  Procter?'  Procter  deprecated  with  en- 
ergy such  an  idea  as  that.  Looking  at  the  portrait 
again,  Rogers  said,  with  great  feeling,  '  Children 
would  run  away  from  that  face,  and  they  never  ran 
away  from  me.' " 

What  most  impressed  Mr.  Fields  was  the  feeble 
manner  in  which  Rogers's  best  stories  were  received 
by  the  gentlemen  present  at  his  breakfast-table. 
Mentioning  his  surprise  to  Procter,  the  latter  told 
him  that  they  "  had  heard  the  same  anecdotes  every 
week,  perhaps  for  half  a  century,  from  the  same  lips." 
In  fact,  the  bard  of  Memory  had  almost  lost  the 
faculty  whose  pleasures  he  had  sung.  The  winding- 
sheet  nearly  covered  his  mind  years  before  it  envel- 
oped his  body.  Procter,  who  remembered  him  in 
what  may  be  called  the  prime  of  his  old  age,  says, 
"  It  has  been  rumored  that  he  was  a  sayer  of  bitter 
things.  I  know  that  he  was  a  giver  of  good  things ; 
a  kind   and    amiable   patron,  where   a  patron  was 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORAllIES.       333 

wanted  ;  never  ostentatious  or  oppressive,  and  always 
a  friend  in  need.  He  was  ready  with  his  counsel ; 
ready  with  his  money.  I  never  put  his  generosity  to 
the  test,  but  I  know  enough  to  testify  that  it  existed, 
and  was  often  exercised  in  a  delicate  manner  and  on 
the  slightest  hint."  Procter  gives  but  one  instance  of 
his  "  sub-acid  words."  After  going  to  see  the  statue 
of  Campbell,  he  remarked,  "  It  is  the  first  time  that  I 
have  seen  him  stand  straight  for  many  years." 

Perhaps  the  account  of  Coleridge  is  the  most  nota- 
ble of  Procter's  "  Sketches."  Wordsworth  caught 
Coleridge  in  his  inspired  moments,  when  he  described 

him  as 

"  The  rapt  one  with  the  godlike  forehead; 
The  heaven-eyed  creature." 

Procter  speaks  of  him  as  having  "  a  weighty  head, 
dreaming  gray  eyes,  full,  sensual  lips,  and  a  look  and 
manner  which  were  entirely  wanting  in  firmness  and 
decision.  His  notions  also  appeared  weak  and  unde- 
cided, and  his  voice  had  nothing  of  the  sharpness  or 
ring  of  a  resolute  man.  When  he  spoke,  his  words  were 
thick  and  slow ;  and  when  he  read  poetry,  his  utter- 
ance was  altogether  a  chant."  Procter,  like  all  per- 
sons who  met  Coleridge,  was  amazed  at  the  immense 
extent  of  his  reading,  ranging  from  Jacob  Behmen 
and  Thomas  Aquinas  to  "  Peter  Simple  "  and  "  Tom 
Cringle's  Log."  He  was  ready  to  talk  with  "  every- 
body on  everything,"  and  grateful  to  the  listener  who 
would  relieve  him  of  some  portion  of  the  burden  of 
his  information  by  taking  it,  through  the  ear,  on  his 


334  BARRY  CORNWALL 

own  shoulders.  One  amusing  instance  is  given  of  the 
impossibility  of  dethroning  him  from  his  dominant 
place  in  conversation.  Dining  once  with  a  company 
of  lawyers,  he  provoked  one  of  the  party  into  saying 
to  his  neighbor  at  the  table,  "  I  '11  stop  this  fellow ; " 
and  he  accordingly  said  to  the  host,  "  I  've  not  forgot- 
ten my  promise  to  give  you  the  extract  from  '  The 
Pandects.'  It  was  the  ninth  chapter  you  were  allud- 
ing to.  It  begins  :  '  Ac  veteres  quidam  philosophic  " 
"  Pardon  me,"  Coleridge  at  once  said,  "  there  I  think 
you  are  in  error.  The  ninth  chapter  begins  in  this 
way :  '  Incident  scepe  causes^  etc."  Who  could  stop  a 
talker  so  ready  with  unexpected  knowledge  as  that  ? 
Again,  Coleridge  once  went  from  Highgate  to  London 
to  consult  a  friend  regarding  some  matters  affecting 
the  welfare  of  his  unfortunate  son  Hartley.  He  ar- 
rived at  two  o'clock ;  found  a  number  of  persons  con- 
versing in  his  friend's  drawing-room;  talked  until 
four  o'clock,  when  dinner  was  announced ;  talked  all 
through  the  dinner ;  talked  all  through  the  evening  to 
the  time  when  the  last  stage  for  Highgate  was  an- 
nounced ;  and  then  hurriedly  took  leave,  saying  to  the 

host,  "  My  dear  Z ,  I  will  come  to  you  some  other 

day,  and  talk  to  you  about  our  dear  Hartley."  "  He 
had,"  said  Procter, "  quite  forgotten  his  son  and  every- 
body else,  in  the  delight  of  having  such  an  enrap- 
tured audience."  Again,  "Wordsworth,  apologizing  to 
Rogers  for  being  late  at  one  of  his  breakfasts,  said 
that  he  had  been  to  see  Coleridge,  and  had  been 
detained   by  listening  to   his   inexhaustible   flow   of 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES.       335 

conversation.  Rogers  naturally  inquired,  "  How  was 
it  you  called  so  early  upon  him  ? "  "  Oh,"  replied 
Wordsworth,  "  I  am  to  dine  with  him  this  evening, 
and  — "  "  And,"  said  Rogers,  concluding  the  sen- 
tence, "you  wanted  to  take  the  sting  out  of  him 
beforehand." 

Thomas  De  Quincey,  the  author  of  "  The  Confes- 
sions of  an  Opium-Eatcr,"  was  a  writer  of  whom 
Procter  knew  little,  and  the  little  he  knew  he  cor- 
dially disliked.  What  he  says  of  him  in  the  "  Notices  " 
is  right  enough  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  he  evidently  had 
no  appreciation  of  the  massiveness  and  range  of  his 
erudition,  or  of  his  grand  qualities  of  sentiment, 
reason,  and  imagination.  The  defects  of  De  Quin- 
cey's  writings  spring  from  the  fact  that  they  are  all, 
more  or  less,  "  Confessions."  Even  when  he  aban- 
dons the  form  of  personal  narrative,  and  expatiates 
on  politics,  theology,  history,  philosophy,  art,  litera- 
ture, and  science,  the  peculiarities  of  his  individuality 
are  ever  prominent.  Whether  he  discourses  of  the 
Ca3sars  or  of  Dr.  Parr,  of  the  Essenes  or  of  Words- 
worth's poetry,  of  German  literature  or  of  Tory  princi- 
ples, a  subtile  element  runs  through  the  most  widely 
varying  subjects  he  treats,  giving  evidence  that  he  is 
writing  a  kind  of  psychological  autobiography  even 
in  discussing  topics  which  are  seemingly  most  im- 
personal in  themselves.  This  egoism  leads  him  to 
violate  the  law  of  proportion,  and  to  disturb  the  rela- 
tions naturally  existing  between  the  different  parts 
of  whatever  subject  he  grapples  with.     He  wanders 


336  BAREY  CORNWALL 

into  an  episode  where  at  first  he  meant  only  to  bring 
in  a  pertinent  illustration  ;  and  when  he  once  starts 
off  in  one  of  these  zigzag  movements  of  his  mind,  it 
is  impossible  for  him  to  keep  himself  to  his  "  objec- 
tive point."  He  translates  trivialities  into  thundering 
polysyllables,  and  subjects  them  to  the  most  painful 
processes  of  analysis,  merely  because  they  have  be- 
come associated  in  his  mind  with  some  obscure  oddity 
in  his  own  intellectual  constitution  or  moral  experi- 
ence. His  caprices,  his  personal  animosities,  his 
obstinate  prejudices,  his  tendency  in  discussing  the 
most  important  questions  to  lay  stress  on  the  weakest 
argument  for  the  side  he  supports,  are  but  signs  of 
the  impatient  pressure  of  Thomas  De  Quincey's  indi- 
viduality to  be  uppermost  in  everything  his  mind 
touches,  even  when  the  matter  under  discussion  has 
to  ordinary  readers  no  connection  with  the  said 
Thomas  at  all.  But  with  all  these  deductions  from 
the  value  of  his  writings  as  a  whole,  the  plain  fact 
remains  that  he  was  a  scholar,  a  thinker,  a  great  mas- 
ter of  English  style,  and  a  man  whose  general  large- 
ness and  depth  of  nature  are  evident  even  in  his 
strangest  freaks  of  intellectual  eccentricity.  Above 
all,  he  was  the  last  of  that  school  of  English  prose 
writers  who  had  sufficient  grasp  and  power  of  mind 
to  venture  on  the  composition  of  long,  intricate,  art- 
fully balanced  sentences,  which  took  up  in  their  ma- 
jestic sweep  all  the  subsidiary  considerations  con- 
nected with  the  main  thought  to  be  expressed,  either 
limiting  its  scope  or  adding  to  its  force,  and  which 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES.       337 

were  brought  to  a  rhythmical  end  in  cadences  that 
pleased  the  ear  as  well  as  satisfied  the  mind.  Cami> 
bell  says  of  Wallace,  the  stalwart  hero  of  Scotland,  — 

"  The  sword  which  seemed  fit  for  archangel  to  wield 
Was  light  in  his  terrible  hand." 

Considered  as  an  intellectual  weapon,  the  long  sen- 
tence, so  efficient  in  the  hands  of  Hooker,  Taylor, 
and  Milton,  was  generally  abandoned  for  Dryden's 
smaller  weapon,  even  in  the  age  when  Clarendon 
gave  one  of  the  latest  examples  of  its  effective  use. 
Burke  seized  and  brandished  it  anew,  wielding  it  as 
such  a  giant  might  have  been  expected  to  wield  it, 
while  at  the  same  time  freely  availing  himself  of  the 
rapier,  the  dagger,  and  all  the  other  small  arms  in 
the  armory  of  rhetoric  which  had,  from  the  time  of 
Dry  den,  been  found  to  be  the  easiest  for  ordinary 
controversialists  to  handle.  The  prominent  prose 
writers  of  the  present  century,  including  such  widely 
contrasted  masters  of  prose  eloquence  as  Southey, 
Landor,  and  Macaulay,  did  not  dare  to  take  up  the 
sword  which  had  somewhat  rusted  since  it  fell  from 
the  hands  of  Burke.  De  Quincey  felt  no  such  dis- 
trust of  his  powers.  The  weapon  "  fit  only  for  an 
archangel  to  wield "  is  certainly  not  "  light "  as  he 
swings  and  brandishes  it ;  but  at  any  rate  it  is  one 
which  he  alone  among  his  contemporaries  ventured 
to  grasp  and  wield  with  a  resolute  purpose.  Indeed, 
the  prose  style  of  De  Quincey  is  of  itself  evidence 
that  he  possessed  an  original  and  creative  mind. 

22 


338  BARRY  CORNWALL 

But  it  is  time  to  turn  from  the  authors  that  Procter 
knew  to  a  short  consideration  of  his  own  works.  His 
dramatic  scenes,  his  songs,  and  his  narrative  and  de- 
scriptive poems  form  a  body  of  verse  of  no  inconsider- 
able bulk  and  variety,  —  in  bulk  exceeding  that  of  the 
poetic  works  of  Collins,  Gray,  and  Campbell  com- 
bined. It  cannot  be  said  that  any  portions  of  his 
writings  can  claim  to  elude  criticism  on  the  ground 
that  they  were  youthful  productions.  In  1815,  when 
the  name  of  "  Barry  Cornwall "  first  became  known 
by  his  occasional  contributions  to  the  "  Literary  Ga- 
zette," he  was  three  years  older  than  Keats  was  when 
he  died.  In  1819,  when  his  volume  of  "Dramatic 
Scenes,  and  Other  Poems  "  appeared,  he  was  two  years 
older  than  Shelley  was  when  he  died.  Whatever  im- 
maturity may  be  discovered  in  Procter's  earlier  efforts 
could  therefore  not  be  referred  to  any  immaturity  in 
respect  to  age.  Charles  Lamb  affirmed  that  if  he 
had  found  any  of  his  "  dear  boy's "  dramatic  scenes 
in  exploring  the  almost  forgotten  works  of  the  minor 
dramatists  of  the  Elizabethan  age,  he  would  not  have 
hesitated  to  reprint  them  in  his  "  Specimens  ; "  but 
his  "  dear  boy  "  was  then  thirty-two  years  old.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  by  brooding  long  over  his  mod- 
els Procter  had  caught  something  of  their  peculiar 
audacity  and  verve,  and  become  capable  of  repro- 
ducing, in  a  manner  of  his  own,  that  strange  charm 
which  fascinates  us  in  the  best  passages  of  Middleton, 
Dekkar,  Wel^ster,  Heywood,  and  Fletcher.  His  suc- 
cess  in  this,  however,  seems   to   us   greater   in  his 


AND  SOME  or  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES.       339 

"  Dramatic  Fragments  "  than  in  his  first  "  Dramatic 
Scenes."  But  taking  his  works  as  a  whole,  the  one 
criticism  to  be  made  upon  them  is  that  their  apparent 
substance,  estimated  by  the  number  of  printed  pages 
they  occupy,  is  disproportioned  to  their  real  substance, 
estimated  by  the  amount  of  thought,  imagination, 
knowledge,  experience,  and  passion  they  convey. 
Wo  have  to  pick  and  cull,  sift  and  reject,  when  we 
come  to  distinguish  between  the  faculties  which  the 
poet  displays  and  the  matter  on  which  they  are  exer- 
cised. A  certain  antiquated  kind  of  reviewing,  much 
cherished  still  by  what  Procter  would  himself  have 
called  the  "  ferrets  "  of  criticism,  depends  for  its  suc- 
cess on  discovering  unwarrantable  rhymes,  defective 
lines,  and  broken  or  discordant  images  in  the  verses 
it  reviews  ;  but  the  fundamental  question,  in  such  a 
poet  as  Procter,  relates  to  substance  rather  than  to 
form.  Judged  by  this  test,  he  exhibits  a  decided  pre- 
dominance of  stimulant  over  nutriment,  of  melody 
over  matter,  of  poetic  quality  and  force  over  original 
poetic  observation  and  experience.  However  large, 
rich,  eloquent,  melodious,  and  potent  may  be  the 
power  of  utterance,  the  inevitable  question  at  last 
comes  up  to  the  poet  as  to  the  man  of  business, 
"  What  have  you  to  say  ? "  Wordsworth  answered 
it,  more  or  less  satisfactorily,  to  the  last  generation ; 
Tennyson  has  answered,  and  is  now  happily  alive  to 
continue  answering  it,  with  a  somewhat  faltering 
tongue,  to  the  present  generation ;  but  there  still  re- 
mains a  mischievous  tendency  to  exalt  the  mere  pos- 


340  BARRY  CORNWALL 

session  and  exercise  of  poetic  faculty,  apart  from  the 
matter  in  which  it  is  embodied.  Literary  history 
proves  that  all  great  poets  are  distinguished  by  their 
more  or  less  rapid  accumulation  and  assimilation  of 
poetic  materials,  drawn  from  all  quarters  of  the 
known  intellectual  and  moral  world,  as  well  as  from 
their  own  observation  and  experience ;  and  that  their 
divining  and  shaping  imaginations  operate  on  a  tangi- 
ble substance  of  knowledge,  however  different  may 
be  their  modes  of  representing,  transforming,  or 
transfiguring  it.  After  making  all  proper  deductions, 
however,  from  the  mass  of  Procter's  poetry,  we  find 
that  what  remains  is  a  solid  addition  to  the  poetical 
literature  of  the  century.  His  songs,  as  Longfellow 
says,  "  have  the  very  pulse  of  music  in  them ; "  even 
when  little  is  expressed  that  has  any  intellectual  and 
imaginative  value,  the  sentiment  and  the  melody  are 
still  sweet  and  attractive,  and  there  are  some  scores 
of  them  which  are  remarkable  for  other  qualities 
than  the  mere  indefinite  beauty  which  comes  from 
vague  images  wedded  to  harmonious  sounds.  "  The 
Sea,"  "  King  Death,"  "  The  Sea-King,"  "  Belshazzar," 
"  Wine,"  "  Song  of  the  Outcast,"  "  A  Storm,"  "  Full- 
er's Bird,"  "  A  Poor  House,"  "  To  the  Singer  Pasta," 
"  The  Lake  has  Burst,"  "  A  Bacchanalian  Song," 
"The  Blood  Horse,"  "The  Rising  of  the  North," 
have  a  grand  lyric  energy  which  produces  an  instan- 
taneous effect  on  the  brain  as  well  as  on  the  blood. 
Among  the  "  Unpublished  Verses,"  printed  now  for 
the  first  time  in  the  present  volume,  "  The  Burial 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES.       341 

Club "  and  "  The  Field  Preacher "  have  a  similar 
energy.  Then  what  can  exceed  the  exquisite  beauty 
and  softness  of  "  The  Chamber  Scene,"  "  A  Repose," 
"  After  Death,"  "  To  the  South  Wind,"  "  Home,"  "  I 
Die  for  thy  Sweet  Love,"  and  other  poems  of  the  same 
general  kind  ?  "  Touch  us  gently,  Time  !  "  is  perhaps 
the  most  popular  of  all  his  songs.  Longfellow  sent 
him,  in  1853,  a  slip  from  an  American  newspaper, 
wherein  the  editor  states,  that  in  opening  twenty- 
seven  of  his  exchanges  he  found  that  each  of  them 
contained  this  home-inspired  lyric.  Longfellow  then 
goes  on  to  say  that  on  the  1st  of  June,  1853,  it  must 
have  been  left  at  a  hundred  and  forty  thousand  doors, 
and  read  by  half  a  million  readers.  "  The  pleasure 
I  have  had,"  he  concludes,  "  in  seeing  this  poem  so 
reflecting  and  flashing  from  thousands  of  mirrors 
makes  me  hope  it  will  give  you  pleasure  to  see  it." 
Perhaps  "  The  Poet's  Song  to  his  Wife,"  "  Golden 
Tressed  Adelaide,"  "A  Prayer  in  Sickness,"  and 
"  Softly  woo  away  her  Breath "  should  be  welcomed 
in  every  household  where  *'  Touch  us  gently,  Time  !  " 
has  entered  with  its  sweet  consecration  of  home  life 
and  home  feeling. 

A  large  portion  of  Procter's  work  consists  of  mis- 
cellaneous poems,  from  which  numerous  examples 
might  be  cited  of  his  tenderness,  thoughtfulness,  mel- 
ody, and  grace  ;  of  his  deep  and  delicate  sentiment, 
playful  fancy,  intense  passion,  and  strong,  daring 
imagination.  In  reading  them  one  is  impressed  anew 
with  the  exceeding  wealth  of  England  in  poetry,  by 


342  BARRY  CORNWALL 

the  mere  thought  that  she  can  afford  to  forget  so 
much  ill  Procter's  verse  which  would  enrich  a  more 
barren  poetical  literature  than  her  own.  What  she 
does  not  forget,  however,  is  excellent ;  and  the  poet, 
dying  at  the  advanced  age  of  eighty-seven,  had  not 
the  mortification  of  outliving  his  reputation.  The 
melodies  which  had  charmed  the  generation  of  Words- 
worth and  Byron  charmed  also  the  generation  of 
Tennyson  and  Browning,  and  still  charm  the  genera- 
tion of  Buchanan,  Rossetti,  and  Swinburne.  At  the 
age  of  eighty,  Procter  wrote  to  Mr.  Fields  that  he  had 
recently  visited  the  house  where  he  had  played  with 
a  wooden  sword  when  he  was  at  the  age  of  five. 
"  What,"  he  exclaims,  "  has  occurred  since  ?  Why, 
nothing  that  is  worth  putting  down  on  paper.  A  few 
nonsense  verses,  a  flogging  or  two  (richly  deserved), 
and  a  few  white-bait  dinners,  and  the  whole  is  reck- 
oned up.  Let  us  begin  again."  This  is  the  transient, 
querulous  discontent  of  an  old  man  vexed  with  bodily 
infirmities,  and  for  the  moment  forgetting  the  glow  and 
gladness  which  he  had  put  into  his  verse,  because 
both  the  gladness  and  the  glow  had  been  in  his  life. 
In  one  of  his  "Dramatic  Fragments  "  he  put  into  the 
mouth  of  an  assumed  character  this  statement :  — 

"  Age  is  a  grave 
Where  Kindness  and  quelled  Passion  and  mute  Love 
Lie,  hand  in  hand,  cold,  —  dead,  —  perhaps  forgotten ! " 

But  this  was  not  the  old  age  of  Procter.  Passion 
was  quelled,  but  kindness  and  love  neither  died  out 
of  his  own  heart  nor  were  wanting:  in  the  hearts  of 


AND  SOME  OF  HIS  CONTEMPORARIES.       343 

his  family  and  friends.  He  had  lived  a  good  life,  un- 
spotted by  any  mean  or  base  passion,  and  delivered 
over  to  no  impulse  of  his  impassioned  Muse  which 
made  him  violate  one  of  his  duties  as  a  husband  and 
father ;  and  while  he  was  on  his  death-bed,  his  "  non- 
sense verses"  were  sung  or  read  by  thousands  of  men 
and  women  he  had  never  seen,  whose  hearts  and 
imaginations  his  poetry  had  stimulated,  enriched, 
elevated,  consoled,  and  cheered. 


DANIEL  DER0XDA.1 

It  is  a  common  remark  that,  since  the  publication 
of  "  Adam  Bede,"  the  appearance  of  a  new  work  by 
George  Eliot  is  welcomed,  not  as  an  ordinary  literary 
incident,  but  as  an  important  literary  event.     Accord- 
ingly "  Daniel  Deronda "  has  been,  during  the  past 
season,  the  one  book  which  has  attracted  all  classes 
of  readers,  which  has   been  the   subject  of  general 
comment,  and  which  has  elicited  criticisms  as  diverse 
as  the  different   points  of  view  from  which  it  has 
been  surveyed.     During  the  serial  publication  of  the 
novel  there  was   manifested  as  little  disposition  to 
deny  the   reality  as   the   originality  of   the   leading 
character ;  for  he  took  a  strong  hold  on  the  sympa- 
thies of  readers.     Questions  as  to  what  he  would  do 
next,  and  whether  he  would  marry  Mirah  or  Gwen- 
dolen, were  warmly,  sometimes  fiercely,  debated ;  and 
to  judge  from  the  tone  of  the  disputants,  he  appeared 
to  be  a  much  more  real  personage  to  them  than  Mr. 
Tilden  or  Mr.  Hayes.     The  notion  of  assailing  him  as 
a  reflecting  puppet,  a  sort  of  personified  meditative- 
ness,  has  sprung  up  since  the  almost  universal  dis- 
appointment at  the  unanticipated  conclusion  of  the 

^  North  American  Review,  January,  1877. 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  345 

story,  —  a  conclusion  which  many  readers  have  re- 
sented as  though  it  were  a  personal  grievance  or 
affront.  It  would,  however,  seem  that  no  embodied 
abstraction  could  have  thus  become  the  object  of 
such  intense  personal  interest ;  and  the  vexation  at 
the  denouement  is  the  strongest  of  all  proofs  that  the 
character  has  the  reality  which  marks  all  great 
imaginative  creations. 

In  classifying  works  of  fiction,  the  general  rule  is  to 
discriminate  between  novels  of  incident  and  novels  of 
character ;  between  novels  in  which  the  main  interest 
is  in  what  the  persons  do,  and  novels  in  which  the 
main  interest  is  in  what  the  persons  are.  "  Daniel 
Deronda  "  is  a  novel  both  of  incident  and  character  ; 
and  in  addition,  it  exhibits  a  wealth  of  subtile,  deep, 
and  comprehensive  thought  altogether  unexampled 
among  the  novels  of  the  time.  One  feels  in  reading, 
re-reading,  and  studying  the  book,  that  in  respect  to 
mere  largeness  of  intellect,  it  is  unmatched  among 
the  works  of  the  most  distinguished  novelists  of  the 
century.  Scott,  Dickens,  and  Thackeray  may  excel 
George  Eliot  in  their  special  departments  of  fiction ; 
but  if  we  apply  the  intellectual  test,  and  ask  which  of 
the  four  has  mastered  most  thoroughly  the  knowledge 
and  advanced  thought  of  the  age,  the  judgment  of  all 
cultivated  persons  would  be  given  unreservedly  in 
favor  of  the  author  of  "Daniel  Deronda."  In  sobriety, 
breadth,  and  massiveness  of  understanding,  in  familiar 
acquaintance  with  the  latest  demonstrated  truths  of 
physical,  historical,  economic,  and  metaphysical  sci- 


346  DANIEL  DERONDA. 

ence,  and  in  the  capacity  to  use  these  truths  as  ma- 
terials for  a  philosophy  of  nature  and  human  nature, 
this  woman  is  the  acknowledged  peer  of  such  men  as 
John  Stuart  Mill  and  Herbert  Spencer.  Leaving  out 
of  view  the  peculiar  powers  which  make  the  great 
novelist,  and  fastening  our  attention  on  the  under- 
standing alone,  it  is  obvious  that  George  Eliot  might 
hold  in  one  corner  of  her  broad  brain  all  that  portion 
of  Scott's  intellect  which  dealt  with  the  philosophy  of 
history  as  distinguished  from  its  picturesqueness ;  in 
another  corner,  all  that  part  of  the  intellect  of  Dickens 
which  in  dealing  with  political  economy  was  prone  to 
substitute  benevolent  sentiments  for  inexorable  laws ; 
and  in  still  another  corner,  all  that  portion  of  the 
intellect  of  Thackeray  which  penetrated  beneath  the 
social  shams  he  pitilessly  satirized  to  the  principles 
which  make  society  possible.  It  is  difficult  to  con- 
ceive of  either  of  these  eminent  masters  of  characteri- 
zation as  adequately  treating  any  subject  requiring 
great  powers  of  analysis  and  generalization ;  but  a 
thoroughly  reasoned  treatise  on  ethics,  politics,  social 
science,  or  the  philosophy  of  history  from  the  pen  of 
George  Eliot  would  excite  no  surprise  at  all,  as  her 
intellect  is  plainly  competent  to  such  a  task.  This 
general  largeness  of  mind,  this  tranquil  grasp  of  the 
outlying  problems  of  human  life  and  human  destiny, 
distinguishes  her  from  all  the  other  novelists  of  the 
age ;  for  she  not  only  looks  at  things  and  into  things, 
but  she  looks  through  things  to  the  laws  of  life  they 
illustrate  and  by  which  they  are  governed.    She  dispels 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  347 

that  pleasant  illusion,  fondled  by  most  writers  of  fiction, 
that  the  individual  is  dominant  in  human  affairs,  and 
gets  what  he  desires  if  he  has  the  energy  to  struggle 
for  it.  The  pitiless  laws  of  existence,  which  are  in- 
dependent of  human  wish  or  will,  and  which  crush  all 
who  oppose  their  action,  she  perceives  with  a  sad  cer- 
tainty of  insight.  To  the  egotist  and  sentimentalist, 
raging  or  moaning  at  the  constitution  of  things.  Nature 
seems  cruel  and  Providence  seems  cruel ;  but  she, 
looking  at  individuals  in  relation  to  the  mighty  ex- 
ternal forces  they  obey  or  resist,  sees  that  unselfish- 
ness is  the  condition  both  of  usefulness  and  happiness, 
and  that  Providence  has  no  pets. 

But  George  Eliot  has  wide-ranging  sympathies  as 
well  as  large  discourse  of  reason,  delicious  humor  as 
well  as  affluent  thought,  a  shaping  and  realizing  power 
of  imagination  as  well  as  manifold  resources  of  obser- 
vation and  experience.  Indeed,  all  her  faculties  and 
qualities  are  but  the  varying  expression  of  one  large, 
noble,  and  opulent  nature.  In  depicting  human  life, 
her  power  of  characterization  stoops  to  the  humblest" 
and  rises  to  the  loftiest  types  of  human  character.  It 
ranges  from  Mrs.  Poyser  to  Dorothea  Brooke ;  from 
the  frivolous  Hetty  to  the  superb  Gwendolen ;  from 
the  mentally  imprisoned  rustic  worthies  who  gather 
at  the  alehouse  in  Ravenloe  to  the  crowd  of  emanci- 
pated mechanics  who  fearlessly  debate  all  questions 
in  their  London  tavern  club  ;  from  representatives 
of  religious  prudence,  provident  even  in  their  hesitat- 
ing trust  in  Providence,  all  the  way  up  to  such  em- 


348  DANIEL  DERONDA. 

bodiments  of  the  fervors  and  exaltations  of  religious 
genius  as  Dinah  in  "  Adam  Bede,"  and  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Lyon  in  "  Felix  Holt,"  and  Mordecai  in  "  Daniel  De- 
ronda."  Indeed,  if  George  Eliot  be  not  what  is  tech- 
nically styled  "  a  believer,"  she  is  incomparably  skilful 
in  exhibiting  the  interior  moods  of  all  classes  of  be- 
lievers. The  phenomena  of  the  spiritual  world,  as 
reported  in  the  experience  of  saints  and  martyrs,  she 
has  studied  with  more  intentness  than  the  phenomena 
of  the  material  world ;  and  her  great  powers  are  never 
more  conspicuous  than  when,  concentrating  the  full 
force  of  her  sympathetic  imagination,  she  records  with 
soul-awakening  eloquence  the  ecstasies  and  the  agonies 
of  lofty  spirits,  touched,  either  in  approval  or  reproof, 
by  the  spirit  of  God. 

In  presenting  this  wide  variety  of  character,  George 
Eliot  employs  two  methods  of  characterization,  each 
of  which  is  good  of  its  kind.  In  the  majority  of  her 
humble  personages,  whose  minds  are  necessarily  re- 
stricted to  a  few  ideas  and  experiences,  the  characters 
•are  represented  as  fixed,  and  the  object  is  to  make 
every  act  and  word  logically  true  to  their  strongly 
conceived  individualities.  Many  critics  consider  these 
characters  as  her  best,  and  loudly  bewail  her  depar- 
ture from  that  region  of  stagnant  village  life  where 
she  won  her  first  laurels.  But  she  also  has  the  higher 
art  of  exhibiting  character,  not  as  grown,  but  as  grow- 
ing, and  of  indicating  the  most  refined  changes  pro- 
duced by  external  circumstances  in  the  vital  processes 
of  its  development.    By  the  first  method  we  are  made 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  349 

acquainted  with  persons  whose  limitations  have  been 
reached,  and  of  whom  we  can  only  say  that  they  have 
lived  ;  by  the  second,  we  become  expectant  witnesses 
of  the  acts  of  persons  whose  limitations  are  yet  un- 
determined, and  of  whom  we  can  only  say  that  they 
are  intensely  living.  We  know  what  the  mother  of 
Felix  Holt  is  from  the  beginning;  we  cannot  tell 
what  Gwendolen  will  be  until  the  end.  Still,  whether 
George  Eliot  portrays  character  as  grown  or  as  grow- 
ing, she  ever  appears  on  the  scene  as  a  looker-on,  pour- 
ing forth  a  stream  of  remarks,  wittily  wise  or  tenderly 
wise,  and  all  tending  to  the  moral  that  individual  life  is 
subject  to  the  laws  of  life,  and  that  ignorance,  caprice, 
self-will,  and  revolt  will  have  a  hard  time  of  it  when- 
ever they  come  into  impotent  conflict  with  the  consti- 
tution of  things.  As  an  apparently  disinterested  ob- 
server of  her  own  creations  and  of  the  progress  of  her 
own  devised  story,  she  impresses  the  cultivated  reader 
with  a  never-ceasing  wonder  at  the  singular  closeness, 
applicability,  compactness,  and  fertility  of  her  thinking, 
whenever  an  occasion  is  offered  or  is  seized  to  insinuate 
it  into  the  substance  of  the  narrative. 

This  tendency  of  her  mind  has  reached  its  height  in 
"  Daniel  Deronda,"  which  so  overflows  with  thoughts 
that  an  ordinary  novel-reader,  dazzled  by  the  blaze 
which  is  intended  to  enlighten  him,  is  tempted  to 
complain  that  he  is  impeded  rather  than  assisted  by 
the  subtle  meditation  which  is  brought  in  to  reinforce 
clear  representation.  A  reference  to  the  greatest  cre- 
ator and  delineator  of  human  character  that  the  world 


350  DANIEL  DERONDA. 

has  ever  seen  is  always  in  point.  Shakspeare  is  open 
to  the  objection,  that,  considered  strictly  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  dramatist,  he  laid  upon  his  char- 
acters a  heavy  burden  of  superfluous  thought,  which 
retarded  the  action  of  the  play,  and  at  the  same 
time  added  nothing  to  our  knowledge  of  the  dramatis 
personce.  "Whatever  violation  of  the  rules  of  dramatic 
art  Shakspeare  may  have  committed,  and  however 
superfluous  much  of  his  thinking  may  appear  to  dra- 
matic critics,  the  great  body  of  his  readers  could  ill 
spare  the  undramatic  thinking  he  so  profusely  poured 
into  his  dramas ;  but  if  we  could  imagine  Shakspeare 
as  a  writer  of  novels  after  the  modern  pattern,  it  is 
easy  to  conjecture  that  he  would  have  retrenched 
some  of  the  maxims  of  general  wisdom  which  he  put 
into  the  mouths  of  his  characters  to  be  spoken  from 
the  stage,  and  used  them  in  commenting  on  his  per- 
sonages and  on  the  incidents  in  which  they  appeared. 
He  also  might  have  been  his  own  critic.  George 
Eliot  is  no  Shakspeare ;  but  her  simple  presentation 
of  Daniel  Deronda  as  a  character  who,  like  Hamlet, 
speaks  and  acts  for  himself  without  any  side  explana- 
tions from  the  author  of  his  being,  might  give  rise  to 
much  of  the  same  kind  of  criticism  which  has  been 
profusely  expended  on  Hamlet.  There  are  almost  as 
many  Hamlets  as  there  are  professors  who  endeavor, 
each  on  his  own  hypothesis,  to  reconcile  the  contra- 
dictions of  Hamlet's  character.  But  suppose  that 
Shakspeare  had  himself  annotated  Hamlet  as  George 
Eliot  has  annotated  Daniel  Deronda? 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  351 

Passing  from  this  general  consideration  of  George 
Eliot's  genius  to  the  work  immediately  under  review, 
the  first  thing  that  strikes  a  careful  reader  is  a  cer- 
tain clumsiness  in  its  construction.  Many  of  the 
misconceptions  regarding  the  purpose  of  the  book  are 
due  to  the  fact,  that,  in  the  two  initial  chapters, 
Gwendolen  is  at  once  introduced  to  us  as  glorying  in 
her  pride  of  beauty  and  in  her  power  of  domination, 
—  a  mood  of  mind  which  even  the  news  of  the  finan- 
cial ruin  of  her  family  does  not  materially  alter.  This 
is  the  method  of  all  the  great  epics  of  literature,  but 
it  is  unfortunate  in  the  case  of  the  present  novel. 
Then  follow  eighteen  explanatory  chapters,  giving  the 
previous  history  of  Gwendolen  and  Deronda  up  to 
the  time  they  accidentally  met  at  Leubronn,  when  the 
necklace  which  she  had  pawned  was  restored  to  her 
by  this  intruding  stranger.  A  vital  point  in  the  story, 
— the  fact  that  Deronda  had  rescued  Mirah  from  sui- 
cide, had  placed  her  with  the  Meyricks,  had  heard 
her  pathetic  narrative,  and  had  been  strangely  im- 
pressed by  such  an  entirely  novel  example  of  guileless 
maidenhood,  before  he  saw  Gwendolen  at  the  gaming- 
table, —  is  a  fact  generally  overlooked  by  readers, 
owing  to  the  method  which  the  author  has  adopted 
of  beginning  her  novel,  as  it  were,  in  the  middle. 
George  Eliot  is  understood  to  be  a  writer  who  never 
reads  any  reviews  of  her  books,  and  undertakes  the  ^ 
task  of  being  her  own  critic.  We  think  that,  on  the 
whole,  she  is  her  best  critic.  In  the  explanatory 
headings  of  many  of  her  chapters,  intended  to  give 


352  DANIEL  DERONDA. 

the  clew  to  her  meaning,  she  imitates  very  happily 
the  quaint,  stately,  and  picturesque  diction  of  English 
prose-writers,  two  centuries  or  two  centuries  and  a 
half  old,  reproducing  the  style  of  Hooker  or  Burton 
or  Sir  Thomas  Browne  as  felicitously  as  Scott  repro- 
duced the  style  of  the  Elizabethan  dramatists  in  his 
frequent  quotations  from  an  imaginary  "  Old  Play." 
But  the  starched  sentences  placed  at  the  head  of  the 
first  chapter  of  "Daniel  Deronda,"  the  object  of  which 
is  to  explain  why  she  does  not  begin  at  the  natural 
beginning  of  the  story,  are  pedantic  and  heavy,  giving 
no  adequate  idea  of  her  usual  skill  in  this  kind  of  imi- 
tation. She  certainly  had  at  hand,  in  Spenser's  let- 
ter to  Raleigh,  expounding  the  design  of  the  "  Faerie 
Queene,"  a  sentence  pat  to  her  purpose.  A  historiog- 
rapher, says  Spenser,  "  discourseth  of  affairs  orderly, 
as  they  were  done,  accounting  as  well  the  times  as 
the  actions ;  but  a  poet  thrusteth  into  the  middest 
even  where  it  most  concerneth  him,  and  there  re- 
coursing  to  things  forepast,  and  divining  of  things 
to  come,  maketh  a  pleasing  analysis  of  all."  In 
addition  to  the  ingenious  and  elaborate  obscurity  of 
the  heading  of  the  first  chapter,  the  first  sentence  in 
the  chapter  itself  contains  a  word  which  seemed  to 
most  novel-readers  portentously  scientific,  and  which 
has  enabled  gentle  dulness  to  indulge  in  many  a  fee- 
ble joke.  "  What,"  the  author  asks  in  reference  to 
Gwendolen,  —  "  what  was  the  secret  of  form  or  expres- 
sion which  gave  the  dynamic  quality  to  her  glance  ?  " 
If  the  mild  scoffers  at  this  terrible  word  will  intermit 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  353 

their  innocently  malicious  giggling  for  a  few  minutes, 
and  turn  to  their  dictionaries  for  the  information  they 
so  evident'ly  need,  they  will  not  only  ascertain  the 
meaning  of  "  dynamic,"  but  understand  why  the  term 
is  specially  applicable  to  the  genius  of  the  author  who 
sees  fit  to  use  it. 

Casting  aside  sucli  obvious  objections  to  "  Daniel 
Deronda,"  and  coming  directly  to  the  question  whether 
the  novel  indicates  a  decline  in  George  Eliot's  power 
of  creating  character,  and  of  vividly  imagining  scenes 
and  incidents  in  which  character  finds  adequate  ex- 
pression, we  are  inclined  to  think  that  it  shows  a  pal- 
pable advance  on  her  previous  works.  Of  course  it 
is  hopeless  to  argue  against  those  who  consider  her 
genius  limited  to  the  representation  of  the  rustic  Eng- 
lish life  pictured  in  "  Silas  Marner,"  or  the  provincial 
town  life  so  delightfully  portrayed  in"Middlemarch." 
Such  persons  are  so  confirmed  in  their  just  admiration 
of  these,  that  they  resent  her  abandoning  the  secure 
field  which  she  has  made  her  own  for  the  new  re- 
gions which  she  seems  ambitious  to  occupy.  They 
are  not»  affected  by  the  argument  that  the  author  may 
naturally  be  reluctant  to  go  on  repeating  herself. 
Indeed,  they  have  something  of  the  feeling  of  the  boy, 
who,  having  taken  an  extravagant  liking  for  one 
juvenile  story,  insisted  that  his  uncles,  aunts,  and 
cousins,  if  they  desired  to  make  him  a  present  of  a 
book,  should  select  that  particular  tale,  because,  he 
said,  he  hnew  that  to  be  good,  and  was  uncertain  as 
to  the  interest  of  any  others.     The  result  was  that 

23 


354  DANIEL  DERONDA. 

he  had  a  dozen  copies  of  the  story  he  prized.  But  the 
hopeful  sign  in  "  Daniel  Deronda  "  is,  that  the  range 
of  George  Eliot's  genius  has  not  yet  reached  its  term ; 
that  her  vigorous  faculties  show  no  symptoms  of  de- 
cay in  their  present  exercise  on  new  pliases  of  human 
life  and  liuman  character ;  that  the  power  which  de- 
lighted us  in  her  previous  novels  is  independent  of 
circumstance  and  locality ;  and  that  she  will  hereafter 
produce  works  as  different  from  "  Daniel  Deronda  " 
as  "  Daniel  Deronda  "  is  from  "  Adam  Bede." 

The  special  admirers  of  George  Eliot,  those  who 
think  her  genius  is  confined  to  the  reproduction  in 
vivid  forms  of  the  rustic  life  of  that  portion  of  Eng- 
land in  which  she  happened  to  pass  her  youth,  must 
admit  that  in  the  present  work  she  has  shown  almost 
equal  power  in  depicting  the  life  of  the  gentry  and  of 
the  upper  middle  classes  of  provincial  England.  The 
general  tone  of  the  society  is  finely  indicated,  while 
every  individual  in  it  is  distinguished  from  the  rest  by 
some  subtile  stroke  of  characterization.  In  the  first 
book,  Mrs.  Davilow  and  her  daughters,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Gascoigne,  Rex  Gascoigne,  Anna  Gascoigne,  the 
Arrowpoints,  Lord  Brackinshaw,  are  made  as  well 
known  to  the  reader  as  to  Gwendolen  the  heroine. 
Passing  to  the  city,  what  an  image  of  domestic  life  is 
presented  in  the  household  of  Mrs.  Meyrick  and  her 
daughters  !  Some  readers  may  be  intolerant  of  Mor- 
decai  the  Jew ;  but  nobody  can  fail  to  enjoy  the  ex- 
quisite humor  exhibited  in  delineating  the  Jewish 
familv  of  the  Cohens,  includinor  Cohen  himself,  his 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  355 

wife,  his  mother,  his  astonishing  little  son  Jacob,  and 
his  hardly  less  astonishing  little  daughter  Adelaide 
Rebekah.  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger  and  Lady  Mallinger, 
Mr.  Bult,  Mr.  Vandernoodt,  Mr.  Lush,  not  to  mention 
others  who  move  more  or  less  in  what  is  called  Lon- 
don society,  are  as  real  as  any  persons  we  daily  meet 
in  the  street.  The  perfection  of  characterization  in 
all  these  persons,  whether  they  are  honest  or  dis- 
honest, is  unraarred  by  a  single  touch  of  caricature. 
The  representation  is  bold  and  distinct ;  but  no  temp- 
tation of  wit  or  humor,  no  impulse  of  sympathy  or  an- 
tipathy, is  allowed  to  exaggerate  or  obscure  a  single 
trait  of  their  natures  ;  and  the  mirror  the  author  holds 
up  to  them  reflects  their  mental  and  moral  lineaments 
so  exactly  that  each  of  them  would,  in  a  moment  of 
pleased  or  vexed  surprise,  wonderingly  admit  the 
accuracy  of  the  likeness. 

Should  we,  therefore,  confine  our  attention  merely 
to  such  persons  as  we  have  named,  the  book  might 
properly  be  considered  a  remarkable  one ;  for  charac- 
terization of  such  nicety,  fairness,  truth,  and  strength 
is  an  exceptional  gift,  and  a  more  exceptional  virtue, 
among  the  novelists  of  the  time.  But  in  this  praise 
we  have  not  touched  the  heart  of  the  book,  or  named 
the  cliaracters  which  should  justly  give  it  a  prominent 
position  among  the  great  novels  of  the  century.  Still, 
let  us  first  quote  a  few  examples  of  George  Eliot's 
power  -in  describing,  characterizing,  and  satirizing 
some  of  the  aspects  of  English  life.  The  opening 
chapter  of  the  book  places  us  as  spectators  in  one  of 


356  DANIEL  DEROXDA. 

the  fashionable  gambling-hells  of  Germany,  —  "  one  of 
those  splendid  resorts  which  the  enlightenment  of  ages 
has  prepared  "  for  this  species  of  pleasure  "  at  a  heavy 
cost  of  gilt  mouldings,  dark-toned  color,  and  chubby 
nudities,  all  correspondingly  heavy,  —  forming  a  suita- 
ble condenser  for  human  breath  belonging  in  great 
part  to  the  highest  fashion,  and  not  easily  procurable 
to  be  breathed  in  elsewhere  in  the  like  proportion,  at 
least  by  persons  of  little  fashion."  Can  anything  ex- 
ceed the  penetrating  force  of  this  satire  ?  The  foul 
air  of  the  gambling-room,  which  makes  those  who 
breathe  it  physically  sick,  has  still  the  grand  recom- 
mendation of  being  the  condensation  of  all  the  breaths 
of  all  the  people  of  fashion  therein  congregated,  and 
therefore  gives  a  kind  of  gentility  to  every  plebeian  who 
has  the  good  fortune  to  inhale  it.  Again,  how  many 
persons  are  hit  in  this  description  of  Mr.  Yander- 
noodt,  a  diner-out  welcome  in  every  society :  "  He 
was  an  industrious  gleaner  of  personal  details,  and 
could  probably  tell  everything  about  a  great  philoso- 
pher or  physicist  except  his  theories  or  discoveries." 
As  to  scholarship,  this  gentleman  professes  his  con- 
tempt for  those  "  Dryasdust  fellows  who  get  a  reputa- 
tion by  raking  up  some  small  scandal  about  Semiramis 
or  Xitocris.  ...  I  like  to  know  the  manners  of  my 
time,  —  contemporary  gossip,  not  antediluvian.  ...  I 
don't  care  a  straw  about  the  faux  pas  of  the  mummies." 
The  picture  of  the  Meyrick  family  is  probably  as  feli- 
citous as  anything  that  the  author  has  ever  done  in 
what  some  people  deem  her  limited  sphere  of  charac- 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  357 

terization.  Both  the  reality  and  the  lovablcncss  of 
the  mother  aud  her  daughters  are  so  starthngly  true 
that  we  cau  hardly  resist  the  impression,  as  we  read, 
that  they  are  among  our  valued  personal  friends  and 
acquaintances.  The  account  of  their  reception  of 
Mirali,  when  Deronda,  after  rescuing  her  from  suicide, 
brings  her  to  their  perfect  home,  and  the  scene  in 
which  Ilerr  Klesmer  appears  to  pass  judgment  on 
Mirah's  musical  capacity,  arc  admirable  illustrations 
of  the  writer's  power  of  giving  lifelike  reality  to  what 
she  sympathetically  depicts.  It  is  odd  that  such  a 
mother —  shrewd,  kind-hearted,  and  practical  —  should 
have  for  a  son  such  an  eccentric,  tempestuous,  and 
scatterbrained  personage  as  Ilans  Meyrick,  —  an  artist 
of  "  irregular  "  genius,  subject  to  fits  of  incalculable 
caprice,  yet  commonly  held  within  bounds  byhisaffec- 
tionatcness,  and  distinguished  from  the  Bohemian  of 
Balzac  by  a  restraining  British  constitution  of  nature. 
He  is  one  of  the  most  marked  among  the  minor  char- 
acters of  the  novel,  radiant  in  humor  and  good-humor, 
and  never  knowing  what  he  will  say  or  do  a  moment 
beforehand.  Deronda  objects  to  Agrippa's  legs,  in 
one  of  his  historical  pictures.  Hans  replies  that  they 
are  good  realistically.  "  But  they  are  impossible  legs," 
urges  Deronda.  "  Then,"  Hans  retorts, "  they  are  good 
ideally.  Agrippa's  legs  were  possibly  bad  ;  I  idealize 
that,  and  make  them  impossibly  bad.  Art,  my  Euge- 
nius,  must  intensify."  It  is  hopeless  to  caution  him 
against  the  effects  of  his  sudden  impulses.  "  Since," 
he  says,  "I  got  into  the  scrape  of  being  born,  every- 


358  DANIEL  DERONDA. 

thing  I  have  liked  best  has  been  a  scrape  for  myself 
or  for  somebody  else.  My  painting  is  the  last  scrape ; 
and  1  shall  be  all  my  life  getting  out  of  it."  When 
Deronda  assures  him  that  Mirah  can,  under  no  con- 
ceivable circumstances,  marry  him,  the  half-grave, 
half-merry  egotist  is  not  a  bit  abashed.  "  I  go,"  he 
declares,  "  to  science  and  philosophy  for  my  romance. 
Nature  designed  Mirah  to  fall  in  love  with  me.  The 
amalgamation  of  races  demands  it,  the  mitigation  of 
human  ugliness  demands  it,  the  affinity  of  contrasts 
assures  it.  I  am  the  utmost  contrast  to  Mirah,  —  a 
bleached  Christian,  who  can't  sing  two  notes  in  tune. 
Who  has  a  chance  against  me  ?  " 

A  character  almost  as  picturesque  as  Hans  is  Herr 
Klesmer,  "  a  felicitous  combination  of  the  German, 
the  Sclave,  and  the  Semite,  with  grand  features, 
brown  hair  floating  in  artistic  fashion,  and  brown 
eyes  in  spectacles,"  —  one  of  those  forcible  men  who 
hold  their  right  rank  in  well-dressed,  well-bred  con- 
ventional society,  though  their  clothes  never  fit  them', 
and  though  their  manners  have  a  brusqueness  which 
is  ever  in  danger  of  violating  the  conventional  rules 
of  good-breeding.  As  an  artist  who  has  identified 
himself  with  his  art,  his  imperiousness  of  demeanor 
and  emphasis  of  speech  seem  to  spring  from  his 
feeling  of  the  dignity  of  the  art  he  represents,  rather 
than  from  any  arrogance  of  personal  disposition.  In 
all  matters  regarding  music  he  speaks  with  that  dog- 
matism which  is  based  on  certain  knowledge ;  what 
Mrs.   Gamp   calls  "the   torters  of  tlie    Imposition" 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  859 

could  not  wring  from  him  a  polite  compliment  to  a 
mediocre  performance ;  and  Gwendolen's  beauty,  on 
his  first  introduction  to  her,  only  forced  from  his  gal- 
lantry the  equivocal  praise,  "  It  is  always  acceptable 
to  see  you  sing ! "  Nothing  can  be  better  than  his 
retort  on  Mr.  Bult,  —  the  "  political  platitudinarian," 
whose  "  monumental  obtuseness "  he  hated  as  the 
awkward  mimicry  of  the  dignity  of  a  gentleman, — 
when  that  wooden  politician  patronizingly  informed 
him  that  he  was  sure  he  had  too  much  talent  to  be  "  a 
mere  musician."  "  No  man,"  replied  Klesmer,  "  has 
too  much  talent  to  be  a  musician.  Most  men  have 
too  little.  A  creative  artist  is  no  more  a  mere  musi- 
cian than  a  great  statesman  is  a  mere  politician.  "We 
are  not  ingenious  puppets,  sir,  who  live  in  a  box  and 
look  out  on  the  world  only  when  it  is  gaping  for 
amusement.  We  help  to  rule  the  nations  and  make 
the  age  as  much  as  any  other  public  man.  We  count 
ourselves  on  level  benches  with  legislators  ;  and  a 
man  who  speaks  effectively  through  music  is  com- 
pelled to  something  more  difficult  than  parliamentary 
eloquence."  Mr.  Bult's  only  resource  is  to  turn  to 
Miss  Arrowpoint,  and  with  undiminished  gravity  to 
remark,  "  Your  pianist  does  not  think  small  beer  of 
himself."  But  the  great  musician's  whole  soul  comes 
out  only  in  his  interview  with  Gwendolen,  when  she 
desires  to  learn  his  judgment  as  to  her  capacity  to 
succeed  in  public  as  an  actress  and  singer.  The  emo- 
tions which  are  stirred  during  the  conversation  give 
all  the  more  emphasis  to  the  thoughts  which  it  elicits. 


360  DANIEL  DERONDA. 

The  interview  is  strictly  an  event  in  the  progress  of 
the  story,  for  Gwendolen's  fate  depends  on  Herr  Kles- 
mer's  decision ;  but  the  principles  of  art  announced 
in  it  apply  to  hundreds  of  other  cases,  which  resemble 
Gwendolen's  only  in  the  one  particular  need  of  con- 
verting a  means  of  elegant  amusement  into  a  source 
of  income.  Fortune  enables  a  great  number  of  young 
women  to  acquire  sufficient  training  in  music  to  sing 
and  play  acceptably  in  drawing-rooms,  and  sufficient 
training  in  elocution  to  win  applause  in  private  the- 
atricals ;  and  when  a  reverse  of  fortune  occurs  they 
are  commonly  smitten  with  Gwendolen's  ambition  to 
be  singers  in  public  concert-rooms  and  actresses  on 
the  public  stage.  It  seems  to  them  easy  to  win  ap 
plause  from  the  sensitive,  vulgar  public,  after  the 
fastidious  critics  of  the  drawing-room,  persons  noto- 
riously existing  in  a  constant  state  of  semi-boredom, 
have  condescended  to  confess,  in  that  fashionable 
drawl  which  is  the  happiest  of  all  developments  from 
the  imbecility  of  the  baby's  drool,  that  they  have  been 
quickened  and  inspired  by  what  they  have  listlessly 
seen  or  yawningly  heard.  But  the  moment  the  public 
is  faced,  the  amateur  is  made  cruelly  conscious  of  the 
difference  between  the  criticism  of  parlors  and  the 
criticism  of  theatres.  The  very  persons  who  would 
have  considered  an  invitation  to  the  private  entertain- 
ment as  a  compliment  deserving  of  any  number  of 
compliments  in  return,  become  the  bitterest  critics  of 
the  public  exhibition ;  and  those  fashionable  friends 
who  delighted  in  the   performances  of  the   opulent 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  361 

amateur  arc  not  wont  to  buy  tickets  for  the  "  benefit " 
night  of  the  unsuccessful  actress.  Ilerr  Klcsmer 
unveils  to  Gwendolen  the  austere  facts  of  the  pro- 
fession which  her  self-confidence  impels  her  to  choose 
as  a  means  of  recovering  fortune.  "  The  gods,"  he 
declares,  "have  a  curse  for  him  who  willingly  tells 
another  the  wrong  road ; "  and  then,  full  of  remorse- 
ful pity  and  tenderness  for  the  beautiful  creature 
Avhose  expectations  he  must  disappoint,  he  proceeds  to 
unfold  those  inexorable  laws  by  which  alone  success 
in  any  of  the  fine  arts  can  be  attained.  In  the  course 
of  a  hurried  conversation,  broken  now  by  pauses  and 
now  by  outbursts  of  passion,  a  true  philosophy  of  art 
is  evolved.  That  conversation,  indeed,  is  a  text-book 
for  all  amateurs  who  aspire  to  be  artists ;  and  if  dili- 
gently studied  it  will  serve  both  as  a  guard  against  the 
delusions  of  self-esteem,  and  as  a  guide  in  the  paths 
which  lead  to  excellence. 

It  would  be  easy  to  go  on  enumerating  the  minor 
details  of  incident,  character,  and  reflection  which 
contribute  to  make  the  appearance  of  this  book  a 
literary  event.  But  there  are  four  characters  which 
stand  out  from  the  rest  with  such  a  stamp  of  power 
and  originality  on  them,  that  they  impress  the  least 
thoughtful  reader  as  altogether  beyond  the  ken  and 
grasp  even  of  such  novelists  as  Dickens  and  Thack- 
eray. These  are  Gwendolen  Harleth,  Daniel  Deronda, 
Mirah,  and  Mordecai. 

Gwendolen  is  a  masterpiece  of  characterization. 
Tlie  conception,  delineation,  and  development  of  this 


362  DANIEL  DERONDA. 

specimen  of  haughty  maidenhood  are  alike  admirable. 
Many  novelists  create  characters ;  but  few,  like  George 
Eliot,  create  souls  as  well  as  characters.  And  the  soul 
which  she  creates,  embodies,  and  calls  by  the  name  of 
Gwendolen  Harleth,  she  also  constantly  watches,  so 
that  the  reader  is  allowed  to  note  all  that  throng  of 
interior  emotions,  thoughts,  volitions,  and  events 
which  precede  outward  acts,  whether  the  acts  be 
comparatively  unimportant  or  absolutely  momentous. 
As  the  beholder  as  well  as  creator  of  this  soul,  she 
never  seems  to  lose  sight  of  it,  either  by  day  in  its 
conscious  feeling  and  thinking,  or  by  night  in  its 
vague  fears  and  perturbing  dreams.  The  scrutiny  is 
as  relentless  as  that  of  a  naturalist  who  has  a  jelly- 
fish under  his  microscope,  and  as  tenderly  considerate 
as  that  of  a  mother  who  holds  her  new-born  babe  in 
her  arms.  While  freely  handling  this  palpitating 
mass  of  spiritual  life,  her  touch  is  so  delicate  as  never 
to  inflict  a  bruise.  And  during  all  the  time  that  the 
soul  is  subjected  to  this  intense  imaginative  observa- 
tion and  analysis,  the  bodily  presence  animated  by  the 
soul  is  as  vividly  apparent  to  the  external  eye  as  is  the 
invisible,  mysterious  essence  within  it  to  the  eye  of  the 
mind.  This  is  assuredly  masterly  characterization ; 
but  the  statement  still  does  not  cover  the  whole  ground. 
Gwendolen  is  not  only  thus  made  spiritually  and  physi- 
cally alive,  but  the  outlying  social  and  spiritual  laws 
she  obeys  or  violates  are  discerned  with  the  same 
sureness  of  insight  which  penetrates  into  the  depths 
and  records  all  the  changes  of  her  individual  being. 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  363 

It  is  an  indication  of  George  Eliot's  skill  that  from 
the  first  she  connects  Gwendolen's  self-assertion  and 
self-confidence  with  perfect  bodily  health.  Nature 
teaches  humility  by  deranging  digestion  as  well  as  by 
heaping  up  impediments  to  the  schemes  of  pride ;  in 
both  cases  humility  comes  from  the  perception  that 
the  inward  power  is  weak  before  the  outward  obstacle. 
But  up  to  the  time  that  a  banker's  knavery  had  made 
wreck  of  her  mother's  fortune,  Gwendolen  had  en- 
countered nothing  that  was  stronger  than  her  own 
determination  ;  exulting  in  her  health,  her  beauty, 
and  her  inborn  instinct  of  commanding,  possessing  "  a 
decision  of  will  which  made  itself  felt  in  her  graceful 
movements  and  clear,  unhesitating  tones,"  with  "  a 
certain  unusualness  about  her  "  w-hich  acted  with  the 
effect  of  a  potent  charm,  and  giving  to  petty  objects, 
surveyed  from  her  heights  of  self-exaltation,  a  kind  of 
"  hazy  largeness,"  she  reduced  all  persons  in  imme- 
diate relations  with  her  to  the  position  of  confessed 
inferiors.  Her  meek  governess  predicted  that  she 
would  never  rest  until  she  had  brought  the  world  to 
her  feet ;  her  mother,  wdiom  she  caressed  and  tor- 
mented by  turns,  always  appeared  before  her  "  in  an 
apologetic  state  of  mind  for  the  evils  brought  on  her 
by  her  step-father ; "  her  half-sisters  were  compelled 
to  be  satisfied  when  they  excited  her  contempt  in  a 
milder  form  than  was  common.  As  to  the  great 
mass  of  human  beings,  she  did  not,  like  Grandcourt, 
call  them  beasts,  but  she  was  determined  not  to  be 
sacrificed  "to  creatures  worth  less  than  herself,"  to 


364  DANIEL  DERONDA. 

make  "  the  very  best  of  the  chances  that  life  offered 
her,  and  conquer  difficulties  by  her  exceptional  clever- 
ness." Her  ideal  "  was  to  be  daring  in  speech  and 
reckless  in  braving  dangers ; "  but  beneath  this  autoc- 
racy of  disposition  there  was  a  furtive  spiritual  ele- 
ment, which,  though  inefficacious  as  a  spiritual  re- 
straint, occasionally  surprised  her  by  betraying  her 
superstitious  liability  to  fits  of  spirituals  dread.  On 
her  first  day  at  Offendene,  when  her  spirit  of  maid- 
enly domination  was  at  the  highest,  her  little  sister 
Isabel  happened  to  open  a  hinged  panel  in  the  wain- 
scot of  one  of  the  rooms,  and  revealed  a  picture  of  "  an 
upturned  dead  face,  from  which  an  obscure  figure 
seemed  to  be  fleeing  with  outstretched  arms."  For  a 
moment  she  shuddered  with  an  unspeakable  horror, 
the  vague  spiritual  dread  at  the  heart  of  her  being 
shooting  suddenly  up,  through  layer  after  layer  of 
pride  and  self-complacency,  to  affright  her  with  a 
prophetic  glimpse  of  the  upturned  face  of  her  future 
detested  husband,  struggling  with  death  in  the  harbor 
of  Genoa,  and  she,  the  obscure  figure  of  the  picture, 
fleeing  in  thought  from  any  sympathy  with  his  des- 
perate attempts  to  regain  the  boat. 

The  transitory  emotion,  however,  passes  rapidly 
away ;  and  she  proceeds  in  her  career  with  a  supreme 
confidence  in  her  courage  and  in  her  sense  of  supe- 
riority. As  a  high-spirited  maiden,  untouched  by 
love,  and  too  full  of  exulting  health  to  be  contami- 
nated by  sentimentality,  she  graciously  receives  the 
admiration  and  adoration  of  men  so  long  as  they  keep 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  365 

at  a  respectful  distance  ;  but  when  her  cousin,  Rex 
Gascoigne,  makes  love  to  her  in  earnest,  and  pre- 
sumes to  take  and  press  her  hand  with  the  imploring 
eagerness  of  a  feeling  which  she  does  not  share,  she 
becomes  a  mountain  of  ice,  freezing  him  to  the  heart's 
core.  "  Pray  don't  make  love  to  me,"  she  exclaims ; 
"  I  hate  it ! "  She  feels  a  maiden's  horror  at  the 
slightest  profanation  of  her  person.  She  cannot  en- 
dure the  thought  that  her  hand  or  lip  should  be  pas- 
sionately touched  by  a  man  who  has  not  succeeded  in 
taking  possession  of  her  soul.  After  rejecting  Rex, 
she  puts  her  arms  round  her  mother's  neck  with  "  an 
almost  painful  clinging  ; "  sobs,  cries,  protests  that  she 
can't  love  people,  but  on  the  contrary  hates  them,  and 
ends  by  declaring,  "  I  can't  bear  any  one  to  be  very 
near  me  but  you."  The  emotion  is  doubtless  to  be 
referred  to  a  kind  of  remorse.  She  knows  that  out 
of  mere  pride  of  domination,  and  of  delight  in  seeing 
her  admirers  reduced  to  the  position  of  slaves  to  her 
caprice,  she  has  lured  her  obedient  friend  and  servant 
Rex  Gascoigne  to  the  point  of  declaring  his  love. 
She  breaks  his  heart  as  cruelly  as  the  most  hardened 
coquette  could  have  done ;  and  yet  she  regrets  that 
she  has  made  him  miserable.  Still,  the  feeling  that 
prompts  her  resentment  of  his  familiarity  is  purely 
maidenly,  and  is,  indeed,  the  instinctive  defence  of 
women  against  the  first  approaches  of  men  to  estab- 
lish a  more  intimate  relation  with  them  than  that  of 
friend.  It  is  better  that  the  hearts  of  men  should  be 
broken  —  easily  mended  as  experience  proves  them  to 


366  DANIEL  DERONDA. 

be  —  than  that  the  girl-woman  should  sanction  the 
least  liberties  taken  by  that  importunate  affection 
which  is  too  eager  to  ask  the  question  whether  it  be 
reciprocated. 

It  is  characteristic  of  Gwendolen,  tliat,  never  having 
felt  the  attraction  of  love,  she  should  be  pleased  by 
the  sobriety  and  reserve  of  Grandcourt,  who  conducts 
his  courtship  in  the  grand  style,  without  any  of  those 
disagreeable  incidents  of  kneeling,  kissing,  and  fond- 
ling which  attend  the  sentimental  style  of  wooing.  In 
Grandcourt's  suit  her  ambition  is  reconciled  with  her 
girlish  feeling ;  for  this  rich  landed  gentleman  never 
pesters  her  with  any  of  the  preposterous  outbreaks  of 
emotion  which  mark  the  attentions  of  a  lover  whose 
heart  flashes  forth  in  every  act  and  word.  The  court- 
ship seems  to  be  proceeding  happily  on  the  way  to 
marriage,  when  Gwendolen's  pride  is  stung  and  her 
conscience  wounded  by  the  apparition  of  Mrs.  Glasher 
and  her  children,  —  revealing  to  her  the  fact  that  she 
is  on  the  point  of  connecting  her  fresh  vitality  with 
an  outworn  life,  full  of  "  backward  secrets,"  and  re- 
spectful to  her,  not  from  the  restrained  fervor  of  an 
ardent  love,  but  from  the  mere  exhaustion  resulting 
from  a  previous  passionate  experience.  She  flies 
from  him  with  a  mingled  feeling  of  terror  and  dis- 
gust. At  the  gambling-table  at  Leubronn  she  first 
comes  under  the  notice  of  Deronda,  who  is  sufficiently 
interested  in  her  "  dynamic  glance "  to  return  the 
necklace  she  has  pawned.  She  is  recalled  to  England 
by  the  news  of  her  mother's  loss  of  fortune.     Her 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  367 

confidence  in  her  power  to  conquer  circumstances 
and  to  make  life  what  she  wills  and  wishes  it  to  be, 
is  not  dashed  by  this  calamity.  She  resents  the  idea 
of  descending  to  the  office  of  being  a  teacher  in  a 
school,  or  of  becoming  a  governess  ;  she  aspires  to  be 
a  singer  and  an  actress,  compelling  applause  from  the 
public  as  she  has  compelled  it  in  every  private  circle 
in  which  she  has  appeared.  Herr  Klesmer,  with 
cruel  kindness,  demonstrates  to  her  the  impossibility 
of  success  in  that  direction  of  her  talents.  Baffled  on 
every  side  where  she  thinks  to  make  her  will  efficient, 
she  at  last  commits  the  crime  of  marrying  Grand- 
court,  with  the  feeling  that  his  will  must  yield  to 
hers,  and  that  she  can  serve  Mrs.  Glasher  and  do 
justice  to  Grandcourt's  children,  while  she  at  the 
same  time  carries  out  her  own  dream  of  dominating 
every  society  in  which  she  appears.  A  month  of 
married  life  proves  to  her  that  her  girlish,  petulant 
imperiousness  is  no  match  for  the  persisting  will  of 
her  husband,  —  a  will  that  has  the  quality  of  a  crab  or 
a  boa-constrictor,  which  goes  on  relentlessly  "  pinch- 
ing or  crushing  "  without  the  slightest  regard  to  the 
active  or  passive  resistance  of  its  victim.  "  Any  ro- 
mantic illusions  she  had  in  marrying  this  man  had 
turned  on  her  power  of  using  him  as  she  liked.  He 
was  using  her  as  he  liked." 

Grandcourt  is  one  of  that  detestable  class  of  hu- 
man beings,  instinctively  hated  by  all  good  men  who 
regard  the  rights  and  feelings  of  others,  and  by  all 
bad  men  in  whom   depravity  has   not  extinguished 


368  V       DANIEL  DERONDA. 

every  generous  instinct  of  human  nature.  He  is  just 
the  person  who  if  he  were  encountered  on  our  West- 
ern plains  by  the  wild,  semi-savage  freebooters  who 
give  the  law  to  that  region,  would  be  very  properly 
selected  as  a  person  to  be  "  shot  at  sight."  In  civil- 
ized society,  and  in  civilized  society  alone,  could  such 
a  sneering,  selfish,  cynical,  and  cruel  specimen  of 
aristocratic  insolence  be  tolerated.  He  looks  upon  all 
members  of  the  human  race  outside  of  his  immediate 
associates  as  simply  brutes ;  even  the  persons  he  ne- 
cessarily meets  when  residing  at  one  of  his  country- 
houses,  he  drawlingly  designates  as  "  rather  a  ragged 
lot ; "  and  the  experience  of  vice,  having  destroyed 
whatever  of  soul  he  may  have  originally  possessed, 
has  left  him  with  the  exterior  manners  of  a  conven- 
tional gentleman,  with  a  conventional  gentleman's  su- 
preme disdain  for  all  creatures  who  do  not  belong  to 
his  set,  and  with  a  conventional  gentleman's  continual 
and  unlimited  liability  to  be  bored.  Morally  isolated 
from  his  race,  and  selfish  to  the  inmost  core  of  his 
being,  his  will  grows  doggedly  strong  as  fast  as 
his  human  sympathies  contract ;  and  he  deliberately 
brings  his  will  to  bear  on  Gwendolen  for  the  purpose 
of  slowly  crushing  out  of  her  all  soul  and  individ- 
uality. His  parasite,  Mr.  Thomas  Cranmer  Lush, 
contemptuously  recognized  by  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger  as 
a  kind  of  "  half  caste  among  gentlemen,"  happens  to 
be  the  object  of  her  special  aversion,  and  this  is  con- 
sidered a  sufficient  reason  to  employ  him  in  the  busi- 
ness  of  tormenting    and  insulting   her   into   abject 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  369 

submission.  The  natural  result  is,  that  she  hates  her 
husband  mortally ;  but  she  fears  as  well  as  hates  him. 
In  her  misery  she  seeks  some  moral  support.  She 
finds  it  in  Deronda. 

Daniel  Deronda  appears  to  us  one  of  the  noblest  and 
most  original  characters  among  the  heroes  imagined 
by  poets,  dramatists,  and  novelists.  His  relation  to 
Gwendolen  is  one  fertile  in  immoral  possibilities. 
"  You  are  a  dangerous  young  fellow,"  says  Sir  Hugo 
Mallinger  to  him,  —  "a  kind  of  Lovelace  who  will 
make  all  the  Clarissas  run  after  you,  instead  of  your 
running  after  them."  Indeed,  the  situation  is  exactly 
that  which  French  novelists  have  delighted  to  repre- 
sent ;  and  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  it  would  have 
been  treated  by  novelists  of  such  widely  differing 
characters  and  genius  as  Honord  de  Balzac,  George 
Sand,  Jules  Sandeau,  Th^ophile  Gautier,  Prosper 
Merim^e,  Alexandre  Dumas,  and  Charles  de  Bernard. 
They  would  all  have  agreed  in  lowering  the  moral 
standard  both  of  Gwendolen  and  Deronda ;  they  would 
have  made  the  sensuous  elements  in  their  natures  gain 
the  ascendency  over  the  spiritual,  in  the  complications 
of  duty  and  passion  which  the  polite  pitilessness,  the 
ceremonious  .brutality  of  Grandconrt  would  have  con- 
stantly multiplied, —  and  the  result  would  have  been 
an  inculcation  of  the  rights  of  passion  in  a  highly 
wrought  tale  of  guilt  and  ruin,  in  which  every  step  in  • 
the  downward  path  would  have  been  indicated  with 
marvellous  precision,  and  subjected  to  the  most  re- 
fined  processes   of   psychological   analysis.      George 

2+ 


870  DANIEL  DERONDA. 

Eliot  pursues  a  different  method  because  she  of  all 
novelists  penetrates  with  most  certainty  of  insight 
through  the  hollowness  of  all  theories.of  the  rights  of 
-passion,  and  most  firmly  grasps  the  central  idea  of 
duty  which  underlies  all  reasonable  and  moral  life. 
Deronda,  when  he  discovers  that  he  has  unconsciously 
established  a  spiritual  mastery  over  the  soul  of  Gwen- 
dolen, and  that  she  looks  up  to  him  as  the  one  person 
she  has  met  in  life  before  whom  her  pride  and  ambi- 
tion are  abashed,  is  placed  in  a  position  more  delicate 
than  that  of  a  Jesuit  priest  before  a  distressed  beauty. 
He  is  really  ner  father  confessor,  from  whom  she 
hardly  dares  to  expect  absolution,  but  whose  aid  she 
still  pathetically  implores.  Acting  from  the  instinct 
of  one  of  that  rare  class  of  gentlemen  who  have  been 
aptly  styled  "  God  Almighty's  gentlemen,"  he  comes 
to  her,  not  after  the  French  fashion,  —  as  a  half- con- 
scious, half-unconscious  seducer,  —  but  as  a  respect- 
ful, magnanimous  friend  and  helper,  tenderly,  wisely, 
even  austerely,  giving  her  such  aid  and  counsel  as  it 
is  in  his  power  to  bestow.  It  has  been  objected  that 
he  offers  to  her  only  the  commonplaces  of  consolation, 
and  directs  her  to  use  only  commonplace  means  of 
resisting  the  hard  conditions  of  her  fate.  This  objec- 
tion overlooks  the  fact  that  truisms  are  vitalized  into 
truths  when  uttered  from  his  lips ;  that  these  truths 
have  been  inwrought  into  the  substance  of  his  charac- 
ter ;  that  purity  of  heart  and  justness  of  judgment 
have  in  him  been  organized  into  powers ;  and  that 
neither  his  heart  nor  his  intellect  can  be  imposed 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  371 

upon  by  any  of  the  grand  French  fallacies  of  passion, 
which,  if  followed  out,  could  only  rescue  her  from  her 
present  degradation  by  plunging  her  into  a  degrada- 
tion worse  than  that  she  now  experienced.  In  short, 
he  influences  her  by  the  magnetism  of  his  character 
rather  than  by  the  agreeableness  of  his  opinions ;  and 
the  proud  creature,  reduced  to  an  ignominious  vas- 
salage by  her  detested  husband,  receives  Dcronda's 
practical  precepts  with  a  pathetic  humility.  He  is  her 
outward  conscience,  and  sees  clearly  into  her  moral 
condition  from  the  first.  "  Strange  and  piteous,"  he 
says,  "  to  think  what  a  centre  of  wretchedness  a  deli- 
cate piece  of  human  flesh  like  that  might  be,  wrapped 
round  with  fine  raiment,  her  ears  pierced  for  gems,  her 
head  held  loftily,  her  mouth  all. smiling  pretence,  the 
poor  soul  within  her  sitting  in  sick  distaste  of  all- 
things  ! "  What  was  the  experience  and  the  discipline 
which  thus  made  him  a  discerner  and  consoler  of  souls  ? 
George  Eliot  gives  the  answer  to  this  question  in 
every  mode  that  a  novelist  can  adopt, — by  descrip- 
tion, by  analysis,  by  reflection,  by  the  direct  presen- 
tation of  Deronda  in  scenes  of  intense  dramatic 
interest.  The  essential  fact  is  this, —  that  Deronda 
differs  from  other  heroes  of  romance  in  being  a  man 
of  comprehensive  intellect  as  well  as  of  comprehen- 
sive sympathies.  There  is,  however,  a  doubt  as  to 
his  birth,  which,  while  it  increases  his  toleration  of 
other  individualities,  infuses  into  his  nature  a  subtile 
melancholy  which  somewhat  impairs  the  resolute 
exercise  of  his  will.     Still,  the  essential  excellence  of 


372  DANIEL  DERONDA. 

his  nature  is  in  his  quiet  abandonment  of  that  ele- 
ment of  self-assertion  which  enables  most  forcible 
persons,  indifferent  to  the  rights  and  interests  of 
others,  to  obtain  the  prizes  of  life.  His  special  pecu- 
liarity consists  in  taking  the  point  of  view  of  all  per- 
sons with  whom  he  comes  in  contact  or  collision,  and 
in  his  disposition  to  surrender  his  own  claims  to 
theirs.  Such  a  person  must  be  considered  a  strange 
phenomenon  in  romance  ;  for  in  romance  the  reader 
instinctively  sympathizes  with  the  hero  who  domi- 
nates other  individualities  by  the  superior  force  of 
his  own  personality.  In  literature  the  most  remarka^ 
ble  instance  of  this  combination  of  intellectual  grasp 
with  intellectual  modesty  and  charity  is  found  in 
Shakspeare.  That  this  disposition  of  mind  deserves 
to  be  classed  among  the  highest  and  most  difficult  of 
all  virtues  is  shown  by  the  example  of  him  who, 
nailed  to  the  cross,  in  the  utmost  stress  of  mortal 
agony  still  recognized  the  natural  prejudices  of  his 
tormentors  in  his  prayer,  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for 
they  know  not  what  they  do."'  Towards  this  highest 
ideal  of  moral  and  intellectual  manliness  Deronda 
was  obscurely  striving  from  his  youth  upwards. 
Self-sacrifice  for  others  was  combined  in  him  with  a 
compassionate,  intuitive  knowledge  of  the  egotisms, 
of  the  sufferings,  of  the  wrongs  of  others ;  but  while 
he  thus  admitted  every  claim  on  his  sympathy,  he 
was  in  danger  of  losing  that  impulse  of  moral  wrath 
at  wrong-doing  which  is  the  general  condition  of 
efficiency  in  the  work  of  well-doing.     Deronda,  how- 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  373 

ever,  has  his  critics  constantly  by  him  in  the  persons 
of  his  warmest  friends.  When  at  college  he  gives 
up  his  own  chances  in  order  to  aid  Hans  Meyrick  in 
obtaining  a  much-needed  scholarship,  Sir  Hugo  Mal- 
linger  tells  him :  "  My  dear  boy,  it  is  good  to  be  un- 
selfish and  generous  ;  but  don't  carry  that  too  far. 
[t  will  not  do  to  give  yourself  to  be  melted  down  for 
the  benefit  of  the  tallow-trade ;  you  must  know  where 
to  find  yourself."  Even  Hans  Meyrick  warns  him 
against  a  disposition  he  has  to  take  even  "  an  antedi- 
luvian point  of  view,  lest  he  should  do  injustice  to  the 
megatherium."  This  comprehensiveness  of  sympathy 
and  intelligence  makes  him  the  most  charitable  and 
the  most  helpful  of  friends  ;  but  it  leaves  him  without 
a  definite  aim  in  life.  That  aim  is  supplied  by  his 
love  for  Mirah,  the  fascination  exerted  over  him  by 
Mordecai's  eloquence,  and  by  the  discovery  of  his  own 
Jewish  descent.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  such  a 
character,  so  elaborately  analyzed  and  represented  by 
George  Eliot,  could  have  found  an  object  which  would 
have  concentrated  its  energies  in  any  of  the  ambi- 
tions presented  by  ordinary  English  life.  By  his  na- 
ture he  is  bound  to  devote  himself  to  some  grand, 
unselfish  cause,  where  a  kind  of  Shakspearian  tolera- 
tion for  the  infirmities  of  individuals  is  to  be  com- 
bined w^ith  a  hero's  purpose  to  overcome  seemingly 
hopeless  obstacles,  and  a  martyr's  vision  of  the  gran- 
deur of  the  ultimate  object  which  it  is  the  hero's 
purpose  to  realize.  It  happens,  as  it  were  by  acci- 
dent, that  his  latent  capacity  for  self-consecration  is 


374  DANIEL  DERONDA. 

directed  to  the  re-establishment  of  the  Jewish  nation. 
He  had  become  keenly  aware  that  his  "  too  reflective 
and  diffusive  sympathy  "  was  impairing  his  power  of 
will,  and  he  longed  "for  some  external  event  or 
some  inward  light  that  would  urge  him  into  a  defi- 
nite line  of  action,  and  compress  his  wandering 
energy."  In  the  path  of  duty  he  selected,  the  author 
has  been  careful  to  surround  him  with  disgusts  and 
dissuasives  such  as  all  ideal  reformers,  all  champions 
of  an  overmastering  idea,  have  to  overcome.  The 
Jewish  family  of  the  Cohens,  so  far  as  they  are  repre- 
sentative, make  his  grand  project  apparently  hope- 
less ;  and  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger  is  at  hand  with  his 
sound  common-sense  to  expose  what  he  deems  the 
illusions  of  the  sense  which  is  uncommon.  "  I  have 
long  expected,"  he  says,  "  something  remarkable 
from  you,  Dan ;  but  for  God's  sake  don't  go  into  any 
eccentricities !  I  can  tolerate  any  man's  difference 
of  opinion,  but  let  him  tell  it  me  without  getting  him- 
self up  as  a  lunatic.  At  this  stage  of  the  world,  if  a 
man  wants  to  be  taken  seriously  he  must  keep  clear 
of  melodrama.  .  .  .  You  have  a  passion  for  people 
who  are  pelted,  Dan.  I  'm  sorry  for  them  too ;  but 
so  far  as  company  goes,  it 's  a  bad  ground  of  selec- 
tion." Such  ugly  facts  as  the  Cohen  family,  and  such 
sensible  arguments  as  those  of  Sir  Hugo,  have  always 
been  vainly  presented  to  minds  like  Deronda's ;  and 
human  progress  is  in  some  way  connected  with  the 
refusal  of  elevated  spirits  to  admit  the  validity  of 
such  facts  and  arguments. 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  375 

The  commanding  influence  which  raises  Deronda 
from  a  comprehensive  thinker  on  human  life  to  an 
earnest  enthusiast  is  found  in  the  character  and 
speech  of  Mordecai.  On  this  character  George  Eliot 
has  lavished  her  utmost  skill  in  conceiving,  present- 
ing, and  vitalizing  religious  phenomena.  She  por- 
trays this  consumptive  prophet  in  all  the  external 
shabbiness  of  his  plebeian  condition,  clad  in  mean 
clothes,  working  in  a  common  handicraft,  coughing, 
gasping,  choking,  as  his  feeble  frame  gives  scant 
utterance  to  the  on-rush  of  his  burning  words,  stretch- 
ing forth  his  yellow  skeleton  hands  in  passionate  sup- 
plication, and  his  "  dark-haired  eager  Jewish  face " 
illuminated  with  a  holy  passion  which  might  befit  an 
Isaiah  or  Ezekiel.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  him, 
it  is  certain  that  in  no  previous  English  novel  has 
such  an  example  of  religious  genius  been  introduced 
with  such  startling  effect.  He  may  be  contemptu- 
ously dismissed  as  a  person  unwarrantably  intruded 
into  a  romance  ;  shallow  readers  may  be  offended  at 
such  an  apparition  being  thrust  forward  among  the 
Grandcourts,  Gwendolens,  Lushes,  Meyricks,  and 
Mallingers  of  English  life  :  but  the  fact  still  remains 
that  all  who  really  appreciate  the  highest  qualities  of 
George  Eliot's  genius  must  be  particularly  impressed 
by  this  wonderful  delineation.  It  is  even  better  and 
nobler  than  that  of  Savonarola  as  presented  in 
"  Romola."  The  loftiest  sympathies  of  the  writer's 
soul  are  combined  with  her  finest  powers  of  reason 
and  imagination,  in  the  attempt  to  lift  Mordecai  to  an 


376  DANIEL  DERONDA. 

ideal  prominence  above  the  other  personages  of  the 
book,  —  a  book  which  is  peculiar  among  novels  for 
the  breadth  of  the  view  it  takes  of  human  life  and 
human  character.  She  endows  him  with  the  Hebraic 
fervor  of  imagination  and  intensity  of  will,  while  she 
emancipates  him  from  the  Hebraic  narrowness  of 
view ;  and  she  pours  into  his  passionate  speech  an 
Hebraic  eloquence  unexampled  in  English  literature 
since  the  utterances  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  were  first 
translated  into  our  English  tongue.  Mordecai  is  one 
of  those  enthusiasts  who  believe  that  in  the  spiritual 
universe  soul  answers  to  soul,  and  that  influence  is 
almost  independent  of  language.  "  Why,"  asks 
Deronda,  "  did  you  write  in  Hebrew  ?  "  "I  had,"  re- 
plies Mordecai,  "  the  ranks  of  the  great  dead  around 
me ;  the  martyrs  gathered  and  listened. ^^  But  the 
dreadful  test  to  which  his  enthusiasm  was  subjected 
he  found  in  the  inattention  of  his  own  race.  To 
write  in  English,  he  says,  from  that  "  breath  of  divine 
thought  which  is  within  me,  would  excite  men  to 
smile  at  it,  and  to  say, '  A  poor  Jew  ! '  and  the  chief 
smilers  would  be  my  own  people.''^  The  pathos  of  this 
is  indescribably  deep.  It  bears  a  faint  resemblance 
to  the  chill  of  heart  which  a  thoroughgoing  New 
England  Abolitionist  of  the  old  type  might  have  ex- 
perienced when  he  found  numbers  of  free  negroes  in 
the  Northern  States  despising  their  enslaved  brethren 
in  the  States  of  the  South.  Reformers  who  are  capti- 
vated by  an  ideal  must  expect  to  meet  with  opposition 
from  many  members  of  the  contemned  and  degraded 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  377 

race  they  ardently  desire  to  serve.  Mordecai  feels 
the  opposition  all  the  more  keenly  because  his  physi- 
cal life  is  daily  decaying,  while  his  unrecognized 
ideas  are  daily  becoming  more  clear  to  his  soul.  In 
this  condition  of  spiritual  loneliness  he  foresees  and 
welcomes  the  friendship  of  Deronda.  Upon  this 
fresh,  pure  life,  capable  of  efforts  which  are  impossi- 
ble to  him,  he  relies  with  unalterable  trust.  He  dies 
content  when  he  is  assured  that  Deronda  has  become 
the  heir  of  his  ideas,  and  will  devote  all  the  energies 
of  his  noble  heart  and  all  the  resources  of  his  large 
intellect  to  the  attempt  to  realize  them. 

Mirah  is  commonly  voted  by  critics  to  be  an  insipid 
specimen  of  feminine  excellence.  If  this  be  true,  it 
is  because  the  author  has  failed  in  conveying  to  other 
minds  the  conception  which  evidently  filled  and  de- 
lighted her  own,  and  has  only  succeeded  in  represent- 
ing a  childish  nature  when  she  intended  to  represent 
a  childlike  one.  Mirah  appears  to  us  an  exquisite 
creation,  endowed  with  a  simplicity  of  character  which 
is  as  forcible  as  it  is  simple.  An  artless  Jewish 
maiden  of  genius ;  bearing  in  her  blood  and  soul  the 
fine  results  of  the  inherited  instincts  and  ideas  due 
to  a  hundred  generations  of  culture ;  with  the  artistic 
sense  developed  in  her  to  its  last  perfection,  though 
it  is  limited  in  respect  to  artistic  power;  fervidly 
attached  to  her  religion  because  "  it  was  of  one  fibre 
with  her  affections,  and  had  never  presented  itself  to 
her  as  a  set  of  propositions,"  and  also  because  it  was 
the  religion  of  her  mother,  whose  memory  she  adores 


378  DANIEL  DERONDA. 

and  whose  spiritual  presence  she  constantly  feels ;  a 
thoroughly  natural,  genuine,  and  guileless  creature, 
fleeing  from  evil  with  an  instinctive  abhorrence,  and 
relying  on  good,  when  she  meets  it,  with  an  in- 
stinctive trust,  —  she  would  be  proof  against  the 
charge  of  being  insipid  were  it  only  for  one  charac- 
teristic which  is  always  found  associated  with  power ; 
namely,  the  identity  in  her  nature  of  conscience  and 
sensibility  with  will,  so  that  every  monition  of  duty  or 
prompting  of  affection  is  followed  by  its  appropriate 
act.  Her  virgin  ingenuousness  stands  every  test  and 
trial ;  the  sharpest  scrutiny  cannot  detect  in  her  the 
slightest  proclivity  to  falsehood ;  and  the  quaint,  odd 
way  she  has  of  unexpectedly  flashing  her  sincerities 
of  feeling  on  the  attention  of  those  who  are  more 
experienced  than  herself,  lends  piquancy  and  fascina- 
tion to  her  ebullient  but  resolute  innocence.  Deronda 
passes  unconsciously  from  the  position  of  a  protector 
to  that  of  a  lover;  and  this  change  is  shown  with 
consummate  skill,  both  in  subtile  psychological  analy- 
sis of  the  moods  and  needs  of  these  mated  souls,  and 
in  picturing  scenes  where  their  characters  have  full 
opportunities  for  complete  self-expression.  It  is  to 
be  added  that  in  this  novel  the  softening  sensuous 
elements  which  enter  into  the  complex  passion  of 
love  are  omitted,  in  respect  both  to  the  attraction 
which  draws  Deronda  to  Mirah  and  in  that  which 
draws  Gwendolen  to  Deronda. 

George  Eliot  has  anticipated  and  answered  in  the 
book  itself  most  of  the  criticisms  which  have  been 


DANIEL  DERONDA.  379 

made  upon  it  since  its  publication.  The  criticisms  of 
it  in  the  most  prominent  organs  of  literary  opinion 
seem  to  be  written  by  Sir  Hugo  Mallinger,  or  Grand- 
court,  or  even  by  Thomas  Cranmer  Lush ;  but  there 
is  nothing  said  against  the  leading  character  which  is 
not  more  felicitously  said  by  those  personages  in  the 
book  itself.  The  chief  defect  in  the  story  is  that  it 
suddenly  stops  rather  than  artistically  ends.  The 
conclusion  is  meagre,  and  bears  the  marks  of  having 
been  hurried  up.  There  i-s  a  remote  possibility  that 
the  author  intends  to  follow  the  precedents  of  Thack- 
eray and  Anthony  Trollope,  and  introduce  in  her  next 
novel  some  of  the  leading  characters  whose  fortunes 
are  left  undetermined  in  the  present.  In  that  case 
we  shall  be  informed  whether  or  not  Rex  Gascoigne 
eventually  marries  Gwendolen,  and  how  it  fares  with 
Deronda  and  Mirah  in  their  mission  to  the  East. 
Still,  the  conclusion  of  "Felix  Holt"  and  "Middle- 
march  "  is  as  unsatisfactory  as  that  of  "  Daniel 
Deronda ; "  in  respect  to  each,  the  words  "  To  be  Con- 
tinued "  would  seem  proper  substitutes  for  "  Finis." 
But  it  appears  to  be  the  fate  of  this  remarkable  nov- 
elist to  raise  expectation  to  the  height  only  more  or 
less  to  disappoint  it,  and  to  give  an  absorbing  interest 
to  characters  whom  she  abruptly  leaves,  without  con- 
descending to  gratify  that  natural  curiosity  in  readers 
which  she  has  labored  so  successfully  to  excite. 


GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIFE. 

After  reading  for  the  third  or  fourth  time 
"  George  Eliot's  Life,  as  Related  in  her  Letters  and 
Journals,"  arranged  and  edited  by  her  second  hus- 
band, J.  W.  Cross,  our  first  favorable  impression  of 
Mr.  Cross  has  deepened  with  each  fresh  examination 
of  his  work.  In  no  other  biography  of  the  kind  is 
there  such  a  complete  self-effacement  of  the  biogra- 
pher in  the  subject  of  his  biography.  He  presents 
his  wife  as  she  lived  and  labored  in  her  high  calling, 
but  he  intrudes  himself  simply  to  connect  the  letters 
and  journals  into  something  like  a  consistent  narra- 
tive. The  reader  constantly  complains  that  he  has 
not  made  his  own  contributions  to  the  book  more 
voluminous  and  more  luminous.  He  tells  us  little  or 
nothing  of  some  matters  which  he  must  have  thor- 
oughly known,  and  which  he  must  have  felt  that  his 
readers  ached  to  know.  All  the  mysteries  of  George 
Eliot's  life  are  left  unexplained,  or  only  partially  ex- 
plained. His  only  aim  seems  to  have  been  to  make 
his  work  an  autobiography,  compiled  from  the  letters 
and  journals  of  his  wife.  "With  exasperating  modesty 
and  diffidence  he  declines  to  venture  an  opinion  on 
some  matters  as  to  which  the  admirers  of  George 


GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIFE.  381 

Eliot  arc  divided  in  opinion.  He  evidently  adores 
his  wife,  thinks  that  what  she  says  in  defence  of 
her  conduct  is  a  final  judgment  which  no  courts  in 
Christendom  can  overrule,  and  only  appears  to  state 
the  conditions  under  which  a  letter  was  written,  dis- 
appearing the  moment  the  information  is  given. 
Indeed,  so  far  as  Mr.  Cross  enters  into  this  autobiog- 
raphy of  George  Eliot  he  leaves  the  impression  of  a 
somewhat  shy  gentleman,  but  still  a  gentleman  of 
unmistakable  honor,  intelligence,  and  integrity.  If 
any  faults  are  to  be  found  in  his  editorial  labors,  they 
are  faults  of  omission  and  not  of  commission. 

If  any  admirer  of  George  Eliot's  writings  expected 
to  find  in  these  volumes  much  which  would  throw 
new  light  on  the  genesis  and  processes  of  her  genius, 
he  is  doomed  to  disappointment.  The  letters  are 
genuine  letters,  without  a  trace  of  insincerity  or  affec- 
tation ;  but  they  chronicle  her  maladies  much  more 
than  they  reveal  the  method  of  her  creations.  The 
pangs  of  childbirth  are  usually  considered  the  most 
dreadful  physical  torments  entailed  on  women  for  the 
sin  or  indiscretion  of  Eve.  In  reading  this  biography 
we  are  made  to  believe  that  they  are  slight  in  compar- 
ison with  the  pangs  of  bookbirth.  A  third,  at  least, 
of  her  letters  and  journals  is  taken  up  with  distress- 
ing accounts  of  her  attacks  of  headache,  dyspepsia, 
rheumatism,  and  other  miseries  connected  with  a 
frail  and  infirm  bodily  constitution.  Throughout  the 
work  one  gets  the  general  impression  that  he  is  fol- 
lowing, week  after  week,  month  after  month,  the  life 


382  GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIEE. 

of  an  invalid.  She  hardly  seems  competent  at  any 
time  to  produce  the  great  works  of  genius  which  bear 
her  name.  Her  spiritual  health,  when  we  recur  to 
her  novels,  seems  strangely  at  variance  with  the 
almost  constant  physical  ill  health  which  she  ruefully 
records  in  her  letters.  We  can  hardly  recall  another 
instance  of  a  mind  so  strong,  broad,  hardy,  beautiful, 
heroic,  and  creative,  lodged  in  a  body  so  ill  adapted 
to  house  such  a  spiritual  guest.  Thus  in  a  letter 
written  when  she  was  twenty-one  years  old,  she  says 
she  cannot  "  attack  Mrs.  Somerville's  connection  of 
the  Physical  Sciences"  until  she  has  applied  four 
leeches  to  her  suffering  head.  It  was  the  noble  soul 
in  the  weak  frame  that  burst  through  all  these  ob- 
structions and  overcame  all  these  difficulties.  As  the 
world  goes,  she  might,  like  her  weak  sisters  in  in- 
validism, have  been  justified  in  leading  the  life  of  an 
effortless  valetudinarian,  fearful  every  moment  that 
activity  of  any  kind  would  bring  back  her  headaches, 
and  plaintively  demanding  of  the  healthier  members 
of  her  family  a  constant  attention  to  her  wants  and 
her  whims.  It  is  frightful  to  think  how  many  in- 
mates of  otherwise  happy  households  are  cursed  by 
the  care  they  have  to  bestow  on  some  sick,  sensitive, 
and  selfish  relative,  who  commonly  contrives  to  sur- 
vive them  all. 

"When  we  say,  however,  that  the  correspondence  of 
George  Eliot  dwells  too  much  on  her  constantly  re- 
curring bodily  troubles,  we  do  not  mean  that  her  let- 
ters, taken  as  a  whole,  are  not  remarkable  specimens 


GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIFE.  383 

of  epistolary  composition ;  for  they  are  full  of  keen 

observation,  weighty  thoughts,   penetrating    glances 

into  the  problems  of  human  life,  and  descriptions  of 

scenery  which  are  as  notable  for  their  accuracy  as  for 

their  vividness  and  power.     When  she  first  appeared 

as  a  novelist  she  was  about  thirty-seven  years  old. 

We  remember  that  after  reading  the  first  chapters  of 

"  Scenes  of  Clerical  Life,"  published  in  "  Blackwood's 

Magazine,"    we  were   both  charmed   and  puzzled, — 

charmed  by  the  style,  and  puzzled  as  to  whom  among 

living  celebrities  could  the  authorship  be  ascribed ; 

for  the  writer  was  evidently  a  great  master  of  English 

prose,  and  his  sentences  had  the  last  grace  of  good 

prose,  —  that  of  exquisite  rhythm.     No  novice  could 

have  written  "  Amos  Barton,"  for  on  every  page  was 

the  evidence  that  it  proceeded  from  the  mind  of  a 

person  long  practised  in  the  art  of  forcing  language 

to  convey  thought  and  feeling  with  perfect  exactness, 

and  at  the  same  time  with  perfect  ease  and  freedom. 

The  private  letters  and  journals  now  published  show 

that  George  Eliot  was  a  great  prose  writer,  in  her 

correspondence   with    intimate    friends,   long   before 

the  "  Scenes  of  Clerical  Life  "  were  dreamed  of ;  yet 

hardly  one  of  these  friends  discovered  that  she  was 

the  George  Eliot  who  was  talked  about  in  all  literary 

circles,  until  she  confided  the  fact  to  such  persons 

as  she  thought  would  keep  the  secret  as  long  as  it 

could  be  kept  from  the  public. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  dwell  at  length  on  the  first 
period  of  her  life.     She  was  the  child  of  a  thoroughly 


384  GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIFE. 

practical  and  a  thoroughly  honest  man  of  the  English 
middle  class,  but  at  the  same  time  a  man  limited  in 
his  conceptions  to  what  are  called  Tory  notions  in 
Church  and  State.  Caleb  Garth  in  "  Middlemarch  " 
is  an  idealized,  yet  substantially  truthful  representa- 
tion of  her  father.  To  this  father  she  was  literally 
true  to  the  death.  She  was  the  only  genius  born  in 
the  family.  Her  brothers  and  sisters  doubtless  grew 
up  to  be  admirable  specimens  of  the  average  virtue 
and  intelligence  of  the  middle  classes  of  Great  Britain. 
They  belonged  to  what  Abraham  Lincoln  called  "  the 
plain  people,"  —  the  people  who,  in  England  as  in  the 
United  States,  have  done  the  work  which  has  aided 
the  slow  progress  of  that  real  civilization  which  is 
gradually  lifting  the  lower  and  dependent  classes 
into  a  higher  rank  among  the  forces  that  control  the 
politics  of  the  few  nations  on  the  globe  which  have 
arrived  at  the  dignity  of  being  ruled  by  constitutional 
governments.  But  the  one  daughter  of  this  excellent 
family  in  whose  career  we  are  especially  interested 
was  a  thinker  from  her  childhood,  and  at  the  same 
time  the  most  affectionate  of  human  beings.  She 
could  not  as  a  girl  live  without  love,  and  could  not 
accept  an  opinion  or  a  creed  which  she  had  not  veri- 
fied by  her  own  vital  experience,  whether  the  experi- 
ence came  from  the  exercise  of  her  reason  or  from 
the  feelings  of  her  heart.  As  she  grew  up  into 
womanhood  she  was  overcome  by  the  emotional  side 
of  evangelical  Christianity,  and  her  whole  soul  was 
absorbed  in  it.     It  afforded  her  what  she  thought  a 


GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIFE.  385 

substantial  ground  for  her  two  primary  impulses,  which 
were  })erfect  self-sacrifice  for  the  good  of  others,  and 
an  awful  sense  of  the  obligations  of  duty.  In  this 
period  of  her  life  she  showed  all  the  peculiarities 
which  prophesied  a  new  Protestant  saint.  She  knew 
enough,  as  she  thought,  of  the  pleasures  of  the  world 
to  appreciate  all  their  value,  and  to  condemn  them 
as  valueless.  She  was  overcome  by  the  sense  of  sin, 
even  while  indulging  in  what  the  general  theological 
sense  of  the  world  has  come  to  consider  comparatively 
sinless.  She  had,  as  a  woman  of  genius,  an  instinc- 
tive sense  of  the  splendor  and  beauty  of  the  great 
authors  she  had  read  and  assimilated,  and  yet  she 
had  a  fear  that  her  intense  appreciation  of  exceptional 
but  still  unsanctified  genius  might  be  a  grievous  vio- 
lation of  her  duty.  Her  letter  to  Miss  Lewis,  at  the 
age  of  twenty,  on  the  bad  effects  of  novels,  illustrates 
her  renunciation  of  even  the  cherished  companions  of 
her  youthful  years.  She  had  at  the  age  of  eight  a 
passionate  admiration  of  "Waverley."  During  this 
interval  of  evangelical  piety  she  half  surrendered  her 
delight  in  the  novels  of  Scott.  She  read  books  which 
taught  tliat  the  indulgence  of  her  taste  for  even  inno- 
cent works  of  fiction  might  lead  her  down  to  perdition. 
Her  sense  of  the  folly  of  this  extreme  creed  kept  her 
on  the  sane  path  of  reasonable  evangelicism ;  but 
she  persisted  in  it  until  she  read  the  works  of  Isaac 
Taylor.  This  good  Christian,  in  his  many  books, 
especially  in  his  "  Physical  Theory  of  a  Future  Life," 
and   in   his  elaborate  discussion  of  facts  connected 

25 


•  386  GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LITE. 

with  "Ancient  Christianity,"  unsettled  in  her  mind 
that  faith  in  the  Christian  religion  it  was  designed  to 
establish  on  an  indestructible  foundation.  The  book 
which  completed  the  work  of  making  her  reject  all 
orthodox  creeds  was  Charles  Hennell's  "  Inquiry  Con- 
cerning the  Origin  of  Christianity."  When  after- 
wards she  met  in  London  Mackay,  Lewes,  Herbert 
Spencer,  not  to  mention  others,  all  her  old  theological 
opinions  were  cast  aside  by  her  understanding,  while 
they  still  held  a  strange  influence  over  lier  heart  and 
soul.  It  is  curious  that  her  greatest  efforts  in  char- 
acterization are  those  which  embody  men  or  women 
of  religious  genius.  So  far  as  we  remember,  there  is 
not  a  single  character  in  any  of  her  novels  who  at- 
tracts our  sympathies  by  his  scepticism.  The  intense 
experience  througli  which  she  passed  as  an  unques- 
tioning Christian  animates  all  her  novels.  In  her  life 
she  never  swerved  from  religion,  as  she  understood  it. 
In  all  her  published  letters  she  expresses  something 
like  horror  at  vulgar  irreligion.  No  novelist  or  dra- 
matist has  approached  her  in  her  singular  power  of 
embodying  religious  character ;  and  the  reason  is  that 
she  had  "  experienced "  religion  vitally.  All  after- 
addition  of  scepticism  added  not  any  element  to  her 
power.  To  the  last  she  made  religion  the  central 
part  of  life ;  for  in  religion  she  found  her  deepest 
belief  that  self-sacrifice  for  others  was  the  funda- 
mental base  of  all  ethics,  and  tliat  to  give  humanity 
what  a  Yankee  might  call  "  a  shove  forwards "  was 
the   greatest  thing  that  the   best  and   noblest  men 


GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIFE.  387 

and  women  could  hope,  in  this  imperfect  world,  to 
do.  One  of  the  puzzles  of  her  life  is,  that  in  mat- 
ters regarding  religion  she  allowed  her  understand- 
ing to  adopt  opinions  which  her  deepest  reason  and 
affections  repudiated,  ller  heart  ever  gave  the  lie 
to  her  head. 

"  The  best  good  Christian  she, 
Although  she  knew  it  not." 

But  the  fact  remains  that  in  her  published  works  the 
reader  would  search  in  vain  for  any  indication  of  her 
private  sceptical  tendencies. 

What  some  liberal  critics  would  call  the  great  mis- 
take of  her  life,  if  not,  as  both  English  and  American 
matronhood  assert,  the  great  blot  on  her  character, 
was  her  marriage  with  George  H.  Lewes.  According 
to  English  law  the  marriage  was  illegal.  The  wife  of 
Mr.  Lewes  abandoned  him  after  committing  adultery ; 
she  felt  or  pretended  to  feel  remorse  for  her  conduct, 
and  was  received  back  into  the  household  she  had  dis- 
honored. Then  some  new  seducer  tempted  her  to  fly 
away  from  her  husband  and  children.  Thus  his  home 
became  homeless.  By  a  technicality  of  English  law, 
Lewes  had  forfeited  his  right  to  be  divorced  from  his 
faithless  partner,  because  in  a  moment  of  compassion 
he  had  received  her  back  as  his  "  lawfully  "  wedded 
wife.  In  this  condition,  as  a  twice-dishonored  hus- 
band, he  met  Miss  Evans.  He  was  fascinated  by 
her,  and  she  gradually  became  fascinated  by  him. 
There  was  no  outward  beauty  on  eitl:ker  side ;  Lewes 


388  GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIFE. 

was  one  of  the  homeliest  men  in  Great  Britain,  and 
Miss  Evans  had  no  personal  attractions,  if  we  except 
the  sweetness  of  her  voice  and  the  singular  beauty  of 
expression  in  her  eyes.  Each  saw  the  visage  of  the 
other  "  in  the  mind."  Miss  Evans,  repudiating  the 
technicality  of  the  English  law,  consented  to  be  united 
to  Mr.  Lewes  ;  went  abroad  with  him,  was  married  to 
him,  we  think,  in  some  foreign  city,  and  returned  to 
England  a  kind  of  social  rebel,  frowned  upon  by  all 
women  except  those  intimate  friends  who  knew  her 
motives  and  never  faltered  in  their  friendship.  As 
she  never  sought  "  society,"  and  rather  disliked  it, 
she  bore  with  exemplary  patience  all  the  social  disad- 
vantages of  her  illegal  rather  than  immoral  conduct. 
Seven  years  before  her  union  we  find  in  one  of  her 
letters  this  remark  about  the  novel  of  "  Jane  Eyre," 
then  the  literary  sensation  of  the  season  :  "  All  self- 
sacrifice  is  good,  but  one  would  like  it  to  be  in  a 
somewhat  nobler  cause  than  that  of  a  diabolical  law 
which  chains  a  man  soul  and  body  to  a  putrefying 
carcass."  After  her  marriage,  she  wrote  to  her  friend 
Mrs.  Bray,  "  that  any  unworldly,  unsuperstitious  wo- 
man who  is  sufficiently  acquainted  with  the  realities  of 
life  can  pronounce  my  relations  to  Mr.  Lewes  immoral, 
1  can  only  understand  by  remembering  how  subtile  and 
complex  are  the  influences  which  mould  opinion." 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  legality  or  moral- 
ity of  the  connection,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it 
led  to  the  happiest  results  to  both  parties.  Lewes  had 
been  practically  homeless  for  two  years.     There  was 


GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIEE.  389 

danger  that  his  children  would  grow  up  uneducated 
and  uncarcd  for.  lie  was  fast  drifting  into  Bohemian 
habits.  Four  years  after  his  new  marriage,  Mrs.  Lewes 
states  in  her  journal  that  their  "  double  life  is  more 
and  more  blessed — more  and  more  complete."  A  few 
weeks  after,  Lewes  writes  in  his  journal  that  he  owes 
an  intellectual  debt  of  gratitude  to  Herbert  Spencer. 
He  says :  "  My  acquaintance  with  him  was  the  bright- 
est ray  in  a  very  dreary,  wasted  period  of  my  life.  .  .  . 
I  owe  him  another  and  deeper  debt.  It  was  through 
him  that  I  learned  to  know  Marian ;  to  know  her  was 
to  love  her,  —  and  since  then  my  life  has  been  a  new 
birth.  To  her  I  owe  all  my  prosperity  and  happiness. 
God  bless  her !  " 

It  is  curious  that  on  this  first  introduction  he  did 
not  make  a  favorable  impression.  He  was  a  brilliant 
converser  on  all  topics  that  come  up  for  discussion 
at  a  dinner-table ;  was  one  of  the  best  story-tellers 
in  London  ;  was  a  man  of  various  accomplishments, 
seeming  to  know  everything  without  having  thoroughly 
mastered  anything,  and  with  a  self-confidence  and  self- 
sufiiciency  which  offended  many  grave  persons  who 
were  not  captivated  by  his  wit  and  pleasantry.  The 
austere  Lucy  Aiken  once  met  him  at  a  dinner-party, 
and  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Channing  records  her  dislike  of 
him,  as  a  flippant,  pretentious,  and  irreverent  person. 
Miss  Evans,  on  first  seeing  him,  says  that  in  appear- 
ance he  was  "  a  miniature  Mirabeau."  In  March,  1853, 
he  seems  to  have  overcome  her  repugnance,  for  she 
says,  "  Lewes  is  always  genial  and  amusing.     He  has 


390  GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIFE. 

quite  won  my  liking  in  spite  of  myself."  A  month 
after,  he  had  advanced  in  her  opinion,  for  she  writes 
to  Mrs.  Bray  :  "  Lewes  especially  is  kind  and  attentive 
to  me,  and  has  quite  won  my  regard  after  having  had 
a  good  deal  of  my  yituperation.  Like  a  few  other 
people  in  the  world,  he  is  much  better  than  he  seems, 

—  a  man  of  heart  and  conscience  wearing  a  mask  of 
flippancy." 

During  the  next  fifteen  months  he  gained  her  love, 

—  love,  we  think,  born  somewhat  of  compassion  in 
considering  his  desolate  home  and  neglected  children, 
but  which  after  their  union  ripened  into  an  intensity 
of  affection  seldom  equalled  in  the  annals  of  matri- 
mony. After  completing  any  of  her  great  books,  the 
manuscript  concludes  with  a  dedication  of  the  work  to 
her  "  dear  husband."  The  manuscript  of  "  Romola  " 
may  be  selected  as  an  example.  The  inscription  runs 
thus :  "  To  the  husband  whose  perfect  love  has  been 
the  best  source  of  her  insight  and  strength,  this 
manuscript  is  given  by  his  devoted  wife,  the  writer." 

"  Romola  "  was  the  novel  which,  of  all  her  works, 
most  tasked-  the  energies  of  her  mind  and  most  ex- 
hausted her  bodily  strength.  "  I  began  it,"  she  said 
to  Mr.  Cross,  "  a  young  woman ;  I  finished  it  an  old 
woman."  Yet  the  inscription  of  "  Middlemarch  "  to 
Lewes,  nine  years  after,  shows  that  the  "old  woman" 
still  glowed  with  undiminished  affection  for  her 
"  George,"  as  she  lovingly  called  him  :  "  To  my  dear 
Imsljand,  George  Henry  Lewes,  in  this  nineteenth  year 
of  our  blessed  union." 


GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PEIVATE  LIFE.  391 

Indeed,  the  honeymoon  in  the  case  of  this  couple 
lasted  as  long  as  the  life  of  the  husband. 

Lewes  himself  was  also  immensely  benefited  by 
his  marriage.  She  was  his  salvation.  All  the  works 
for  which  he  will  be  remembered  were  written  in  the 
years  when  her  ardent  sympathy  with  his  labors  was 
at  once  his  inspiration  and  his  guide.  His  love  and 
reverence  for  her  were  unbounded,  and  exhibited  on 
all  occasions,  public  as  well  as  private.  Mr.  Estcott 
has,  since  the  autobiography  was  published,  given 
quite  a  vivid  picture  of  him  as  he  appeared  at  the 
Sunday  receptions  of  his  wife.  "  The  function,"  he 
says,  "  was  more  like  a  religious  ceremonial  than  a 
social  reunion,  and  Mr.  Lewes  played  to  perfection 
the  part  of  Hierophant.  The  gifted  lady  sat  in  the 
centre  of  a  crowd  of  worshippers,  of  whom  some  were 
permitted  to  hold  personal  converse  with  her.  But 
the  majority  gazed  at  her  reverently  and  mutely  from 
afar,  as  if  they  were  looking  upon  the  Beatific  Vision. 
If  any  one  spoke  in  too  loud  a  tone,  or  spoke  at  all, 
when  George  Eliot  happened  to  be  speaking  herself, 
he  was  at  once  met  with  a  '  hush '  of  reprehension 
by  Mr.  Lewes,  and  was  made  to  feel  that  he  had 
perpetrated  a  sort  of  impiety." 

He  continues :  "  George  Eliot  had  unquestionably 
immeasurable  charm  of  mind,  manner,  and  conversa- 
tion for  those  who  knew  her  well ;  but  I  must  say 
that  I  never  advanced  beyond  the  outer  circle  of 
worshippers,  and  that  I  always  felt  myself  one  of  the 
Levites  at  the  gate." 


392  GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIFE. 

We  have  heard  a  number  of  visitors  at  these  recep- 
tions, both  those  who  were  in  the  inner  and  those  who 
were  in  the  outer  circle,  relate  their  experiences,  and 
they  all  agree  in  ascribing  to  Mr.  Lewes  this  devo- 
tional air  and  attitude  to  his  wife ;  while  those  who 
happened  to  be  in  the  inner  circle  on  such  occasions 
agree  in  ascribing  to  Mrs.  Lewes  the  charm  of  un- 
pretentious, unassuming  modesty  of  behavior  while 
conversing  with  such  thinkers  as  Spencer  and  Mill. 

But  perhaps  we  owe  to  this  marriage  —  illegal  in  a 
technical  point  of  view,  but  violating  no  principle  of 
absolute  morality  —  the  great  works  of  fiction  which 
have  rendered  the  name  of  George  Eliot  illustrious, 
and  which  promise  to  live  as  long  as  the  English 
literature  of  the  nineteenth  century  interests  people 
who  speak  the  English  language.  When  she  first 
thought  of  writing  a  story,  he  doubted  whether  she 
had  the  power  of  dramatic  presentation.  Still,  he 
urged  her  to  try ;  and  in  less  than  two  months  she 
wrote  the  first  of  the  "  Scenes  of  Clerical  Life,"  — 
that  devoted  to  the  "  Sad  Fortunes  of  Amos  Barton." 
Lewes  at  once  appreciated  it,  and  sent  it  to  John 
Blackwood  for  publication  in  "  Blackwood's  Maga- 
zine." He  was  just  the  person  to  look  after  his  wife's 
interests  in  dealing  with  publishers.  He  saved  her 
from  all  the  annoyances  connected  with  authorship; 
and  finding  that  she  was  susceptible  to  that  commonest 
kind  of  criticism  which  ignores  the  writer's  aim  and 
purpose,  he  at  last  selected  for  her  reading  all  those 
portions   of   contemporary  comments  on   her  works 


GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIFE.  393 

which  would  please  her,  and  concealed  from  her  all 
those  which  hetrayed  ignorance,  envy,  or  malice  and 
prejudice.  It  was  not  that  she  wished  to  be  praised 
or  flattered,  —  she  was  superior  to  that  ignoble  ambi- 
tion ;  but  her  sensitive  nature  was  hurt  by  reading 
a  criticism  which  misconceived  the  whole  spirit  of 
the  work  on  which  she  had  conscientiously  expended 
months  of  labor,  and  every  page  of  which  represented 
an  expenditure  of  vitality  which  her  weak  physical 
frame  could  ill  spare.  Criticism  which  indicated  an 
intuitive  glance  into  the  processes  of  her  mind,  and 
proved  that  the  critic  had  for  the  time  assumed  her 
point  of  view  before  objecting  to  her  treatment  of  a 
subject,  was  always  welcome  to  her ;  but  purely  ex- 
ternal criticism,  which  condemned  without  in  the  least 
understanding  her,  had  the  effect  of  throwing  her  into 
long  moods  of  depression,  during  which  she  felt  as  if 
the  very  sources  of  her  creative  activity  were  smitten 
as  by  paralysis.  Lewes  did  her  great  service  by  not 
allowing  her  to  be  disturbed  by  reviews  which  could 
do  her  no  good,  but  which  might  do  her  much  evil. 

And  then  at  the  time  of  their  union  they  were 
poor,  and  were  called  upon  not  only  to  support  and 
educate  his  children,  but  to  support  the  wretched 
mother  of  his  children,  —  the  last  task  one  of  almost 
superhuman  benevolence.  They  had  to  look  sharply 
at  every  sixpence  that  was  spent,  and  often  to  deprive 
themselves  of  the  simplest  pleasures.  Now,  Lewes 
knew,  to  a  farthing,  the  exact  money-value  of  every 
drop  of  ink  which  flowed  from  his  wife's  pen.     It  is 


394  GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIFE. 

refreshing  to  observe  that  from  the  moment  the  suc- 
cess of  the  "  Scenes  of  Clerical  Life "  indicated  the 
province  of  literature  that  the  genius  of  George  Eliot, 
as  distinguished  from  her  talent,  was  to  enrich  with 
new  and  original  works,  money  poured  into  the  family 
with  almost  bewildering  rapidity.  For  "  Adam  Bede" 
Blackwood  gave  her  X800  for  four  years'  copyright; 
its  success  was  so  great  that  he  sent  her  voluntarily 
an  additional  <£400  before  the  first  year  of  its  publi- 
cation had  elapsed;  and  then  came  another  £800  for 
the  second  year  after  the  agreement.  It  was  evident 
that  Blackwood  felt  that  he  had  obtained  a  great  prize 
in  the  new  author,  and  that  he  wished  to  retain  the 
prize  by  his  liberality.  For  "  The  Mill  on  the  Floss  " 
he  gave  £2,000  for  the  first  edition  of  4,000  copies. 
When  "  Romola-"  was  in  preparation,  Smith,  Elder,  & 
Co.  offered  ,£10,000  for  the  copyright  at  home  and 
abroad;  and  they  finally  paid  X 7,000  for  its  serial 
publication  in  the  "  Cornhill  Magazine."  For  "  Mid- 
dlemarch  "  and  "  Daniel  Deronda "  the  author  must 
have  received  much  larger  sums.  The  Harpers,  of 
New  York,  paid  £1,200  merely  for  the  advance  sheets 
of  "  Middlemarch."  In  November,  1859,  she  writes  to 
a  friend  that  the  offers  made  to  her  by  rival  publishers 
are  so  great,  that  if  she  could  be  seduced  by  them 
she  might  have  written  three  poor  novels,  and  made 
her  fortune  in  a  year.  "  Happily,"  she  adds,  "  I  have 
no  need  to  exert  myself  when  I  say,  '  Avaunt  thee, 
Satan  ! '  Satan,  in  the  form  of  bad  writing  and  good 
pay,  is  not  seductive  to  me." 


GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIFE.  395 

It  is  with  regret  that  want  of  space  prevents  us 
from  entering  upon  an  elaborate  consideration  of 
many  topics  that  these  volumes  suggest.  We  have 
said  that  they  do  not  shed  so  much  new  light  on  the 
interior  facts  and  processes  of  her  mind  as  the  reader 
could  wish.  There  is  one  passage,  however,  in  a  let- 
ter to  John  Blackwood,  while  she  was  engaged  in 
writing  "  The  Mill  on  the  Floss,"  which  is  suggestive 
of  her  method.  "  My  stories,"  she  says,  "  grow  in  me 
like  plants,  and  this  is  only  in  the  leaf-bud.  I  have 
faith  that  the  flower  will  come,  —  not  enough  faith, 
though,  to  make  me  like  the  idea  of  beginning  to  print 
till  the  flower  is  fairly  out;  till  I  know  the  end  as 
well  as  the  beginning."  This  indicates  her  marvel- 
lous power  of  representing  character  as  it  grows. 
Dickens  once  said  that  in  reading  the  novels  of  many 
of  his  contemporaries  it  appeared  to  him  as  if  the 
authors  lived  next  door  to  their  characters.  "  Now," 
he  added,  "  I  always  live  inside  of  mine."  George 
Eliot  might,  with  even  greater  truth,  have  said  this 
of  her  own  creations.  She  placed  herself,  by  imagi- 
nation and  sympathy,  at  the  inmost  core  of  the  na- 
tures of  her  characters,  and  delineated  them  from 
within,  not  approached  them  from  without.  She  did 
not  merely  look  at  them,  but  she  looked  i^ito  them, 
and  also  looked  through  them  to  the  spiritual  laws 
they  obeyed  or  violated.  She  kept  a  sort  of  relentless 
watch  on  all  the  subtile,  interior  movements  of  their 
minds  and  hearts  ;  and  they  could  not  pass  into  a 
dreaming   sleep  without  being   still   subject  to   this 


396  GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIFE. 

piercing  glance  into  the  fantasies  and  wild  incidents 
of  their  dreams. 

It  has  always  seemed  to  us  that  the  genius  and 
character  of  George  Eliot  widened  and  deepened  as 
the  years  passed  on,  and  that  "  Romola,"  "  Middle- 
march,"  and  "Daniel  Deronda"  are  the  greatest  of 
her  works.  They  certainly  show  that  she  did  not 
repeat  the  characters  she  had  once  depicted,  but  en- 
larged her  field  of  characterization  with  each  succes- 
sive novel.  However  this  opinion  may  be  questioned, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Lewes,  after  his  union 
with  her,  became  a  much  better  man  and  a  much 
abler  writer  than  before.  He  produced,  by  patient 
thought  and  study,  several  scientific  works  of  de- 
cided merit.  The  union  between  the  two  continued 
"  blessed "  up  to  the  day  of  his  unexpected  death, 
which  occurred  in  November,  1878.  The  shock  to 
her  of  this  event  was  terrible.  She  at  last  recovered 
sufficiently  to  see  her  intimate  friends,  and  to  arrange 
her  husband's  manuscripts  for  publication.  In  every 
duty  she  was  called  upon  to  perform  she  was  cor- 
dially assisted  by  Mr.  J.  W.  Cross,  with  whom  and 
with  whose  family  she  had  enjoyed  an  uninterrupted 
friendship  for  more  than  thirteen  years.  He  had  such 
a  love  and  reverence  for  her  that  it  is  hardly  a  mat- 
ter of  wonder  that  the  friendship  ended  in  marriage, 
about  eighteen  months  after  the  death  of  Mr.  Lewes. 
She  lived  only  a  little  more  than  seven  months  after- 
wards, dying  on  the  22d  of  December,  1880.  The 
paragraph  with  which  Mr.  Cross  concludes  the  Auto- 


GEORGE  ELIOT'S  PRIVATE  LIFE.  397 

biography  may  well  serve  as  the  conclusion  of  this 
brief  article :  "  The  place  that  may  belong  to  her  in 
the  minds  and  in  the  hearts  of  future  generations 
will  be  finally  adjudged  on  the  merits  of  her  works. 
We  who  write  and  we  who  read  to-day  will  never 
know  that  final  verdict,  but  I  think  that  those  of  us 
who  loved  her  may  trust  to  it  with  confidence." 


University  Press :  John  Wilson  &  Son,  Cambridg-e. 


